Exp-040407
by Harira
Summary: In a post-Advent Children world, the laboratory in the Shinra Manor is still opened for experiments and a new lab rat is seeking her freedom from hell. How can her story intertwine with our heroes? Who is she and why is she so important for the future?
1. Prologue

Prologue.

The old building was big and silent. No noise came from the upper floors and nothing could ever come from the outside. The manor was alone on that side of the mountain, and no one had been living in that house for a long time. Only the laboratory was still working as the first day the experiment begun. And the girl was running a lonely and difficult run through the corridors.

For a long time she was certain that only she had been breathing under the dusty floors and the covered furniture of the upper floors. That breathing, that blood pumping through her veins, that deep sleep so similar to death and those waking hours that looked like nightmare were no living. She was a living being, but she didn't have a life. She existed, but she didn't want do. She was forced to survive by the man who fed her with a medical drip and sometimes made strange things to her. But she wasn't living. She was just waiting to die, and hoping that would be soon.

One night, however, something changed. While doing what he usually did with her, the man spoke of something that was living under the manor. That something was another man. Or, more accurately, another strange creature. She was shocked to know this. She had never been alone in there! Someone else had always been in the manor, even when the man who made her survive was not there. When she thought the whole world was far distant and no one could hear her cry, someone else was there, somewhere in the undergrounds of the manor. Someone who was as lonely and as desperate as she was. Someone always asleep. Someone living another endless nightmare. That revelation changed her life forever. He had been there all along (well, not all along, but for most of the time of her existence), a few meters away, so close she could just get up and go find him. But of course she couldn't get up. Most of the time she was locked in a small room, lying on the cold stone floor. And when the man came to her he used to take her out of the room and tie her to a laboratory table. She laid there and couldn't move. And when he had finished with her, she was so weak that he usually had to drag her back to the small room. She was locked again and all repeated itself as it always had been for most of her life. But from that night on, she had only one thought in her mind: how could she break free and find that creature?

Months passed before the opportunity came. But eventually the man became too confident and made a mistake. Maybe he just forgot to tie her to the table, or maybe he was sure she couldn't or wouldn't escape. But he was wrong. And when he turned his back to look something on the monitor, the girl lifted herself up and hit him right in the back of his head with something she grabbed near her. The man turned to look at her with surprise and disbelief and she froze while the fear ran through her veins. But then he wavered and fell to the ground, unconscious.

She sat on the edge of the table and slowly put her naked feet on the ground. Yes, she could stand. And she could walk. And so, she ran.

Sometimes she fell and sometimes she was afraid of not having enough energies to find him. The manor's underground corridors were long, dark and cold. She was naked and weak. But she couldn't stop. She had to find him. Escaping alone was impossible, but with him maybe…

The corridors ended in a big cave. There were stairs and some doors. She stopped for a moment, realizing only then that she didn't know what she was looking for. How was he? What did he look like? Where was he sleeping? Was he still alive? What if he didn't want to have anything to do with her? What if he was evil? What if it had all been a big lie and that creature had never existed?

Then she heard steps and panicked. The laboratory man was coming to get her. And if he captured her, he would never let his guard down again. It was now or never, and she started running again before making a true decision. She saw a door and she opened it, threw herself in that room and closed the huge wooden door behind her back.

The room was silent and pitch black. She took a deep breath and forced herself to keep standing on her feet. The running had been too much for her tired body, but she couldn't give in now. Being caught was like losing everything. She tried to convince herself of the possibility that the laboratory man would not notice the door or simply think she wouldn't be able to open it. That he could go on searching her and she would somehow find the other man, the one her hope was placed on. The one who could save her life.

"I won't die" she said to herself in her mind "I wont' die here, I will be free". She took the first step into the darkness of the room. Maybe there was something useful in there, like a weapon or a light of some kind. Keeping trembling hands in front of her face, she walked in the direction opposite to the door. After maybe ten steps, she stumbled in something on the floor and couldn't help but fall on the very same thing. It was something big and flat, like a box resting or the floor. She had just the time to ask herself what could be inside of it, when suddenly the box started to move.

The girl fell back on her feet, trembling with fear. What was that? Was it something dangerous, maybe a trap the laboratory man had set for her? Was it a monster left behind from old experiments with animals? Was it a phantom? Or… was it the sleeping creature that she was searching for? Was this her death or the beginning of her life?

The door behind her back opened with a strong noise and an evil laughter filled the heavy air of the room. The light of a torch invaded the space and she could see what stood in the box, which was absolutely not a box. It was a coffin, now opened. And the creature inside it, who now was protecting his eyes from the sudden light by shutting them and turning his face away, had definitely the aspect of a human being,.

-Look who's here!- said the laboratory man with his vicious voice.

The man in the coffin turned his head as fast as a shot and opened his eyes to look at the one who had spoken. He had the most furious expression on his face and his hands had grabbed the sides of the coffin, ready to help him jump out. His eyes were crimson red and stood fixed on the laboratory man, challenging the blinding light of the torch.

-Don't make that silly expression!- the other said -Who else do you think uses this place?-

The girl stood completely still. She couldn't understand what was happening there, but both the men looked like they had forgotten about her. The crimson-eyed one, especially, had never once looked in her direction as if she didn't exist for him.

-Now, let me take back what's mine- suddenly said the laboratory man taking a few steps forward and leaning to grab the girl's shaky shoulders.

She panicked and instinctively threw herself forward, almost jumping on the coffin man's legs. It was only then that he finally looked at her and his expression of rage changed in the flick of an eye to one of astonishment. The fire in his eyes ceased to burn and he left the grip on the coffin backing off a little, as if he was afraid to be touched. She gripped the cloth of whatever he was wearing and closed her eyes shut, hoping the laboratory man couldn't catch her if she was holding onto him.

But the strange man in the coffin didn't hold her back, and the one from the laboratory easily took her away from him, dragging her on the stone floor of the room and out in the corridor.

"I'm going to die here" she said to herself in her mind "He didn't save me, and there's no freedom for me".

With a swamp of tears and dust on her cheeks, the girl was back on the laboratory table she had left just a few minutes earlier. And this time she was tied down more accurately than ever. She had been living for some moments, but now her life was over. She was back to being tortured and still not enough to die. Never enough to end it once and for all.

The laboratory man seemed happy for the little distraction in his routine. Now he was typing something on the keyword of his big computer and almost singing in a low voice. He was back in control of the situation, and he was more confident than ever.

But then the computer monitor went black and the neon lights of the laboratory did the same. The room fell into complete darkness, as if the power had been taken out. This sudden change shook the girl from her desperation and made her pay attention to the noises in the manor. There was nothing. Not a step, nor a voice. Silence was complete. The laboratory man had stopped his singing and was now breathing fast. The girl knew he was afraid.

Suddenly she heard the heavy door be slammed open and the deafening noise of a gunshot resonated in the room. A chair fell on the floor and the laboratory man started panting.

-No- he said -You can't do it! She's mine-

The girl felt someone fumble with her ties and suddenly she was free in the darkness of the room. She sat on the table and two arms swiftly took her, one sliding under her knees and the other carefully grabbing her on the back, just a bit lower than her shoulders. She was lifted in the air and the left side of her body leaned against a strange mixture of different fabrics. She let her head lay on that person's chest and a strong heartbeat pumped under the layers of fabric and skin.

-I will have her back!- the laboratory man shouted, breathing difficultly.

Her savior didn't say a word, he just started to walk in one direction and never stopped until they were outside the manor's walls.

The night sky was covered with clouds and a cold rain was just about to drop down on Nibelheim's mountains. The girl breathed the outside air for the fist time in years and started shaking. She was outside. She was cold. Maybe she was going to die very soon. But she was safe. The night was dark and there were no lights on the outside of the manor, but she could finally see her savior and his face was the one she hoped it would be. His eyes didn't appear as red as they did in the torch light, but his look was gentle and caring when he put her down to untie his cloak and wrap her light naked body in it. The girl noticed he had something strange in his left hand which made the fingers look pointy and metallic and that his hairs were long and dark. Then he lifted her again and she closed her eyes taking a deep breath. He had a strange mixture of smells but, despite being sleeping in a coffin, he most certainly didn't smell of death. She thought he had the scent of freedom and life.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1.

Vincent stood in front of the big door, frowning in the surrounding darkness. The human being he held in his arms had been silent for a while now, and no movement came from her. If not for the light beating of her heart, she looked like a dead body. But she was not, and somehow he had put himself in the position of being her savior. And now, he had to go on saving her, at least until she was ready to walk on her own and try to find a place in that mad world.

So, he knocked on the door, not really wanting someone to answer but knowing he needed his friends to be the noisy group of caring people they usually were. Of course, questions would be asked, especially from Tifa, who was always so eager to talk things through and take care of everyone. He hated questions and couldn't stand talking about problems. Talking had never been useful in his life. The few times he had tried, only shit had followed. But he had no other options, so there he was. Waiting.

After a few minutes, the door was opened by a very sleepy Cloud Strife. His hair were a mess and he was wearing some tracksuit trousers and a t-shirt, but there he was, in all his blonde glory. Cloud looked stunned to see him and for a few seconds acted like he didn't know what to do. Then, he shook the sleep away and smiled with a confused look on his face.

-Vincent! Where have you been? What happened?- he asked.

Vincent took a deep breath and a step forward, and Cloud automatically moved away from the door, letting his mysterious friend in.

The 7th Heaven was very much the same as the last time Vincent had been there. Some books were scattered on the floor, but the rest of the main room was clean and tidy, as Tifa liked it. There was a vague sense of inactivity, as if the house itself was sleeping and waiting for the morning to come and life to start again.

As Cloud closed the door, Vincent took a few steps into the room and carefully laid the girl he rescued on the nearest couch, taking extra care to see that his red cloak covered her body entirely. Then, he turned to face Cloud, who couldn't possibly let him go without an explanation of who was the naked and tortured girl he had just brought into his house.

-She was in the Manor- he said, as if that was a sufficient explanation.

Cloud stood still, looking intensely at the girl. There was not much light in the room, but there probably was enough for him to notice that she was naked under the cloak, and that she didn't look healthy or fine. Actually, she looked like she was dead, or almost.

-What happened to her?- Cloud asked whispering, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

- _He_ had her- Vincent replied, determined not to pronounce the name of that man, as if his tongue would be poisoned by that.

Cloud stood for a moment in complete silence, than something clicked inside him and he was ready for action.

-You'll need hot water, disinfectant and some bandages. I'll get those, the bathroom is upstairs on the right.- he said, walking away to do what he had said.

Vincent took the girl back in his arms, trying not to notice how much this made him feel uncomfortable, and walked towards the staircase. He was only halfway through when the cloak managed to fall and there he was, going upstairs with a tortured naked girl in his arms. Cloud came back just then and lowered his eyes to give that unknown human being some dignity.

-The bandages and the disinfectant are already in the bathroom. When you are done with it, take her to the second room on the left. There's some spare beds.- he instructed.

Vincent thanked him, and hoped Cloud understood that his eyes were thanking him for much more than just providing a bathroom and some bandages. The blond nodded and went back to bed, not before letting Tifa know nothing dangerous was going on the house. Hopefully.

The bathroom was a small room as tidy as the rest of the house. It was very essential, nothing more than what was needed. Vincent almost thanked Tifa in his mind for that. He was not in the right for flowers, candles and decorative stuff. He had never been, but in that moment flowers would be particularly off topic. As he laid the girl in the bathtub and let the hot water flow from the tap, Vincent took a deep breath and sat on a stool.

Waiting for something to happen, he let himself look at her for the very fist time. Who was she? How was she taken by the scientist? And why? How old was she? The girl looked like an adolescent, maybe she could have been sixteen or seventeen. She had a lot of scars and cuts all over her body, but not on her face. Somehow, he had decided that her face could be spared. Vincent was afraid to know why.

His thoughts went back to a few hours before, when he had been woken up so roughly by her. She was afraid, she was trembling and tears were forming in the corners of her eyes. And she had looked at him like no one had done before, like he was all in the world she had and wanted. How could he refuse to help someone like that? And still, when she had touched his clothes, he had frozen. No one had touched him in such a long time. It a was a very strange and uncomfortable sensation.

When the bathtub was almost full, Vincent cut off the tap. He had to save her, because he knew he was the only one in that building. Nobody could come to help her, maybe nobody knew she even existed. And so he had left his coffin, but not as fast as someone with less issues about being touched could have done. And now he was waiting to see if, because of that freezing sensation he felt when she touched him, he had come too late. He sighed. That would be another sin to atone for.

Minutes passed in complete silence. The house was asleep and it looked like the whole city was holding its breath to see if the girl would come back to life. Vincent could see that she was still breathing, but what if she never woke up? What if she was in some sort of coma? He hadn't thought for a moment to bring her to a hospital or to see a doctor. He didn't know her name, but she was a lab rat like him, and lab rats don't like people in a white coat. He wanted to shield her from that sight, to keep her in a quite and small place, to let her slowly learn to control her new freedom.

After a while he noticed he hadn't lightened up any lamp. Somehow he felt that light could hurt her, and considering she was naked it was better for him to see almost nothing of her. He could distinguish the objects in the room because some light from outside came from the window, and that was more than enough.

The tap leaked a little and sometimes a drop of water would fall on her. She was still breathing lightly but looked very much like a ragged doll. Her hair fell on her face covering it almost completely, her legs were unhealthily thin. It looked like Hojo had kept her alive but not well fed. Vincent thought that it was not like him to starve his lab rats. Was there a particular reason why he had been so careless with this one?

Hours passed in silence and it was almost dawning when she finally moved a finger in the now cold water of the bathtub. Vincent, who had been lost in his mind for some time, shook away the memories he was indulging in and looked at her with attention. She moved again in a spasm and suddenly shook her head. The hair fell away and he could see that her eyes were now widely opened. She was breathing heavily and looked like she was having some kind of panic attack. He instinctively got closer to her, kneeling on the floor near the bathtub. He wanted to say something that could calm her, but no words came to his mind and so he stood there, looking in her eyes while she looked back.

Vincent tried to smile a little, to make her know she was safe. Smiling was not his best, but he was too concerned to notice the irony of the situation when the girl started to cry, never taking her eyes away from him. Her tears were big and looked very heavy while running down her pointy cheeks, as if she was crying lead instead of salty water. But crying seemed to do her good, as her breathing slowly became less heavy and more calm. She also covered her body as she could with her arms, and Vincent hoped that meant she had started to think of herself as a human being again. He looked away, respecting her privacy and sighed in liberation. She was alive.

But his duty was not over. She had lots of wounds that had to be disinfected and bandaged, and she clearly wasn't in the condition to do that herself. It was a scary task, because doing that required an alarming amount of touching, but no one else could do it beside him.

Thinking about that, he looked at his hands and suddenly realized that he was still wearing his metallic glove, which of course was not good for anything beside battle and keeping people away from his body. Now, however, he had to get closer to someone else, a wounded person who deserved to be treated with kindness and soft gestures. His touching needed to be soft and light, as summer wind caressing an injured flower after a storm. Vincent took a deep breath and removed both his gloves, leaving his hand's skin in the air for the first time in a very long time.

When he looked back at her, her eyes were still fixed on him and tears were still leaking out. But now she was silent and looked more calm, as if she was waiting to see what was about to happen to her.

He thought that just touching someone who had recently been tortured couldn't be a very good idea, so he decided to talk first, despite he didn't quite know what were the right things to say or if there were any.

-Your wounds need to be disinfected and bandaged. You can't do it. If you allow it, I'll take care of that.-

Sticking to the facts had looked like the best strategy to him. The message was very clear, but she remained silent. Her looks on him started to make him feel more uncomfortable, like she was burning his skin with her gaze.

-I promise it won't hurt. And then, you can sleep.- he added, hoping this would sound convincing and somehow unlock the situation.

The girl closed her eyes in a slow movement and the tears who had been trapped on her lower lashes were forced to fall on the cheeks. With her eyes still closed, she raised a trembling arm in Vincent's direction and opened the hand, as if she was waiting for something to be put on her palm. He leaned forward just a bit, trying to understand what was going on.

She turned her hand in a vertical position, with the palm facing him and the fingers pointing up. Her eyes were still closed, and her mouth didn't look like she was going to say any word.

Vincent thought that her strange gesture could mean that she was waiting for his hand to mirror hers. He was scared by that, but he also found it very much understandable that she wanted to have control over the situation. She deserved it. He had to make an effort to make her feel good and empowered. He knew too well the feeling of being just a thing other people can use as they want, to not have control over your own body and who touches it, to be treated as a lab rat. She deserved more, she needed the power to rule herself back. If that meant he had to accept the idea of doing things he would normally avoid, that was a small sacrifice he was willing to make.

So, he took a very deep breath and slowly put his palm against her palm, stretching his fingers to mirror hers.

When their skins made contact, the girl shivered and then relaxed her shoulder, as if she had struggled to find herself in a new and firstly uncomfortable position. Vincent, on the opposite, was tense as he could be. The familiar and yet very unfamiliar feeling of his hand making contact with another human's hand made him feel like a thunder was about to struck him from above. He wanted to move away from that touching as soon as he could, to put his gloves back on and never ever do again something so intimate. It appeared that actually making that sacrifice was more a big deal than he had foreseen. But her eyes were still closed and her hand didn't look like it was about to move away. On the contrary, she looked like she was having an important moment and he couldn't back off from that. She had to trust him, because he was the only person in the world who was there for her. Vincent could not let her down.

The dawning light came in by the window e Vincent saw her under the golden ray of the newborn sun. She was almost smiling and new tears were holding onto her lashes. Her breath was now very regular and calm. She slowly raised her other arm and grabbed his with both hers, drawing him closer to her body. Her strength was clearly very limited, but he was not opposing any resistance, so she could pull him closer with not much difficulty.

Vincent bite his lips to avoid a panic attack as his hand was gently forced to land on the girls face. It was almost big enough to cover all the space and he found himself unwillingly touching almost every part of it. Her skin felt just a bit humid and cold, her lashes were soft and trembling against his fingers in a quite ticklish way. Her lips were dry and rough against his palm. She opened her mouth just a little and pressed it stronger against his skin, in what he suspected was something like a kiss. Once again he repeated in his mind that she was conquering back her freedom and he had to put his own distress away for now. She looked like she was having a cathartic moment, and he stood still, repeating himself that he could not let her down while she was going back to life.

He stood still, but on the inside he was drowning in confusion. His life had been very strange, but he had never found himself in such an awkward situation. He wanted to run away and hide in his coffin again, but it was not just that. Behind all that discomfort and awkwardness, something of that whole absurd set-up captivated his attention and made him feel strangely good. He hated to be forced to touch a stranger, but somehow he also quite liked what that situation was making him experience. His skin had seemed to adjust pretty fast to that uncommon sensation and now something similar to an electric current was running through his body. He felt almost feverish, intoxicated. He felt like he wanted both to never touch anything again and to never stop touching her. And he was afraid because this unknown person made him feel like that, like she had the power to turn him upside down. He, who had always been very fond of being in full control of himself, was shattered by the consequences of giving away that power to someone else. It was scary as hell but also a very sharp sensation, like leaning over the void and wanting to retreat but, at the same time, to jump. He felt that it was surely safer not to do that, but indulging in the act brought unpredictable and endless possibility. Suddenly he opened his eyes, realizing he didn't recall having closed it.

And there she was. In the golden light of the dawn that now was pouring though the window, she was looking at him with two big and deep brown eyes that were placed among his own fingers. For the first time she looked peaceful and calm, as if she had regained her place into the world. Vincent found himself breathing heavily and felt ashamed of himself. He was supposed to be the rational savior, but now she looked much more lucid than him. He cleared his throat, trying to win back some control over himself. But she kept his hand on her face, and the fact that she was now staring at him was not helping at all.

-You should be in bed before the others get up.- he said, not knowing where he had found the wit to state something so logical and coherent.

She blinked her eyes very slowly and took a deep breath. Then, her hands reluctantly left Vincent's one, silently giving him the permission to retreat. He looked in her eyes for a few seconds and slowly detached his skin from hers, taking back all the control he had given away.

He started feeling himself again, and he almost wondered if that strange situation had been just a dream, but her eyes were so fixed in his own that any doubt was blown away. The legacy of that dizzily sensation was still lingering in his spirit and he felt shivers on the back of his head. He asked himself if all humans had that strange and unusual power, or if she was the only one in the world who could make him feel like that. It was indeed a dangerous ability. Vincent found out he was now afraid of touching her again, but for a complete different reason than before. He had feared to feel bad, now he was concerned that he would feel too good.

While he was still considering the aftermath of this new experience, the girl tried to get up on her own, but she was clearly not capable of such an effort. She fell in the water and Vincent suddenly felt very aware of her nudity and rushed to get a towel to giver her. Then he had to hold her hand again, because she needed his help to stand.

He felt better. This practical situation was something he could focus on and take care of. Also, when helping her get up, the forced touching didn't make him feel insane like before, and he hoped that was a good sign. Maybe, he wouldn't find himself in that absurd state ever again. While helping her sitting on the stool, he tried not to indulge in the memory of that feeling, who had been the strongest and most positive in long decades of hollow despair.

He knelt before her in a strange parody of a medieval knight before a damsel in distress and finally started disinfecting a big wound under her right toe, probably caused by her run through the corridors of the Mansion. This task made him feel less afraid and more confident. He knew what he had to do, and finally he was doing it. Also, he had to look what he was doing, so no eye contact was possible between them. She was silent and cried no more, so it was not necessary for him to talk or try to make her feel better either. It was a relatively simple and practical task. He could perform his duty without compromising himself more than he already had.

When he had finished with the legs and the arms, things became again a little difficult. He couldn't see if she had big wounds under the towel, and he was absolutely not going to ask her to take that off and show him her naked body again. She had been naked in front of him already too much. So, he stood in front of her like a fool, not knowing how to behave.

Luckily, the girl seemed to understand the situation and put a hand on the bandages left unused, pushing it away. Vincent decided that this meant that she was fine and his duty was over. He nodded and closed the disinfectant bottle before putting it back on a shelf.

Now it was indeed time to put her to bed. The sun was not so high in the sky and Vincent hoped that the people who lived in the house were still sleeping. He looked at the girl as if to ask her permission, and when she nodded he finally opened the bathroom door. He took a few steps into the corridor and glanced back at her, just to see if she was fine. In doing so, he realized that, despite she was standing, the girl was not moving at all. She was slightly trembling, and he called himself a fool for not figuring out before that she was obviously not strong enough to walk on her own. So, he came back on his steps and tried to plan how to help her without touching her too much. But, before he could think of something, her knees started to bend and it was clear she needed to be carried.

So, Vincent took her back in his arms like he had done a few hours before, when Cloud had opened the door. It was more difficult because she was now conscious, and he was afraid of making eye contact again now that her face was so close to his own. But she closed her eyes and leaned herself onto his chest, like she had done when they had left the Mansion. She looked almost asleep, and Vincent thought that she had to be really weak and tired. There was not time for his shyness, she needed to be in bed as soon as possible, especially before the kids were up. She absolutely deserved to rest and surely not needed to be questioned by strangers.

He went the distance between the bathroom and the room Cloud had instructed him to go to and entered founding two small beds. The room had a big window with delicate curtains and something in its look made him feel like it was a room for children. There was a homely atmosphere, like it was a Sunday morning in a happy family house. He guessed that could be a fine place for her to rest and feel better.

On the bed to the left there were some clothes neatly folded. It looked like some kind of pajama and Vincent supposed that Cloud had left those for the girl seeing she was naked. He almost smiled seeing that his friends proved to be kind and caring as he hoped they would be, and thinking that he didn't deserve the company of lovely people like them. But the girl needed someone to take care of her, and he thought he had been right to go straight to Cloud's. He and the others were the most human people he knew, and she surely needed more humanity in her life.

Vincent carefully laid her on the other bed and brought her the clothes. She looked at him with eyes on the edge of sleep and tried to unfold the upper part of the pajama unsuccessfully. He didn't want to, but it clearly appeared to be necessary for him to dress her. She simply couldn't do it on her own.

Doing it with eyes closed was not an option either, because he had never dressed another human being before and surely he couldn't afford to hurt her being careless. So, for the umpteenth time that night, Vincent put aside what he wanted to do and did what he had to. Then, he pull the blankets over her and tried to smile again, to take leave. But she grabbed his wrist and looked at him very deeply. He was clearly not allowed to go away. So, Vincent sat on the bed, while she laid on her back. Once he had taken place, the girl closed her eyes and fell fast asleep, still holding his wrist very tightly.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A few hours later, Vincent was still seated on the bed in the very same position. At first, he hadn't left out of fear that any movement could wake the girl up. Then, since he was alone, he had started thinking about the night before to put his memories in order.

First of all, what had happened to Hojo? Had he managed to kill him? Since he had to shoot him in the dark, he had had to guess the man's position in the room and hope to be very lucky. Vincent was a well trained gunman, but shooting someone in complete darkness was beyond any training. Realistically, even if the bullet had found Hojo's body, it was very likely that the wound hadn't been a fatal one.

So, what if the bullet hadn't killed him right on the spot? Could he have survived an injury like that all by himself in the Mansion, where no one was supposed to go? And what if he could have? What would his next decision be?

And what about his victim? Vincent had a very disgusting memory of how the man smiled while taking her back to the laboratory. Was the girl so important to him? Would he want her back? Why was she in his hands in the first place? And for how long had she been there, suffering gods knew what?

Vincent looked at the girl. Luckily she was sleeping like a baby. He couldn't help wondering if she had a family somewhere, if someone cared for her and was desperate to find her. The fact that she was with Hojo was a puzzle to him. Had she been taken like Cloud and Zack after the Nibelheim incident? Was it possible that some Shinra stuff was still going on and that Hojo was involved in new and terrible experiments? If so, was Avalanche's duty to take care of that?

And what about him? Could he ever go back to his lonely sleep? He hated that dusty coffin, but when he was out of it he often felt the need to go back inside it. Sometimes that feeling was in the background, and life covered it with his events. Other times, however, when he felt profoundly lonely even between his friends, when he saw them going on with their life and felt like he was frozen in time, then the nostalgia of his coffin hit him stronger. He felt like he didn't belong with the living. He saw himself just an old sad man, too old to have a new life and to sad to forget his previous one.

He had been so close to beauty and grace that now everything else looked mostly pale and dull. But he had failed her, and all that had come afterward was nothing more than the unsustainable consequences of his failure. He had been weak when she had needed him to be strong. He was too young, too shy and maybe too stupid. And she had fallen, so lost and so beautiful.

His eternal youth and his never ending life were just his punishment. It was not right for him to enjoy his time, to laugh and be happy. He had to suffer and to avoid any chance to be content to atone for his sins. To pay for what he had done to her.

He was still dwelling in his own despair when he heard a gentle knock on the door. He answered with a low hum and Cloud slowly opened it and stepped inside the room.

In the full daylight, Cloud was even more delightful to the eye. All the Mako energy in his body gave him a glowing aspect which made his eyes sparkle and his skin look like it was made of pearl. He was strong, timid and caring. His life had been a mess too, but his sufferings hadn't closed him up like Vincent. He had become more sympathetic and more protective of his loved ones. And he was completely unaware of his charm. Even Vincent could see the appeal in such an ensemble of attributes, and it was totally unsurprising even to him that Tifa had been in love with Cloud for such a long time. On the contrary, how could someone not love him?

As expected, Cloud smiled lightly and looked at the girl in the bed to check if she was doing fine. Vincent, who had almost forgotten that he was not alone in the room, moved his body just a little bit to make him see that, at least apparently, she was sleeping quite well.

-How is she?- Cloud whispered, seating on the other bed.

-I don't know- Vincent replied -I hope she is having a dreamless sleep.-

Cloud nodded and looked at the window with a focused expression. Vincent suspected that he was remembering his own nightmares. His life had sure been not an easy one. Cloud was well aware of how your past can hunt you in your sleep, right where you hope to have a break from it.

-Thank you for letting us in.- Vincent said, to call back his attention and spare him more dark memories.

-You say this like I would ever leave you out!- Cloud replied, smiling again -That's what friends are for.-

-I just don't take friends for granted.- the other said.

Cloud nodded in approval. Then, after some hesitation, he spoke again.

-When you disappeared we were worried sick. I'm glad to see you again, on your feet. Can I ask why did you go back to Nibelheim?-

Vincent, who was expecting that kind of question and knew he couldn't avoid the subject forever, took a deep breath.

-That place… is where I think I belong.-

Cloud frowned and stood up, to make his words stronger.

-You belong with us. In the Avalanche.-

Had they been different people, maybe there would have been a friendly hug or something like that. But Cloud knew better then to touch Vincent, and actually a physical contact was not necessary. His words alone were strong enough to shake him out of his solitude for a while.

Vincent felt a little awkward because of his confession and because he was not used to receive demonstration of affection like the words his friend had just spoken. Ho looked away, but in doing so his gaze fell on the girl in the bed. He wondered again what her story was, and remembered the first time he saw her, just a few hours before, when she was so hopelessly reaching for him.

-She was so desperate…- ho murmured to himself, remembering the look in her eyes when she had grabbed his clothes.

-And you were there to help her, as you always do.- Cloud added, having heard his words.

Vincent lowered his head trying to accept what was with no doubt a compliment that he felt not deserving of.

-I was not there _for_ _her_ , I was just there. She just jumped into me, trying to escape on her own. So strong…-

He was thinking about the courage and the despair that she must have had in herself to try that impossible escape plan, but he couldn't finish what he was thinking or saying because the girl had suddenly started whining in her sleep. Her brow were frowning, and she looked quite in pain. Maybe she was indeed having a nightmare, after all.

Vincent wanted to assist her, but how? Was it a good idea to wake her up? Or could he touch her just a bit to make her feel cared for? He looked at Cloud in search for a suggestion but his friend looked worried too. His blue eyes were filled with compassion and his body was communicating a sense of impotence. He clearly wanted to help her, but he also didn't know what to do.

The whining grew and she began to move in the bed, leaving for the first time her grip on Vincent's wrist. He caught the chance to get up and resolved to put his hands on her shoulder to shake her a little, waking her up. Her eyes opened with a scared look around and Vincent tried to sound calm and reassuring when he explained that she had been having a nightmare.

-It is over now, and you are safe here.- he said. She felt warm under his hands, but not feverish. Her mind probably would not be clear for sometimes, but at least her body seemed to have taken benefit from the few hours of sleep.

She looked at him with intensity and slowly calmed down. He carefully took his hands away from her, taking a few steps back in Cloud's direction. Her breathing went back to normal and she stood lying in the bad, looking up at him. Cloud approached them and smiled warmly to the girl.

-Hi- he said -I'm Cloud. You are safe and you can stay here as much as you need.-

Vincent appreciated Cloud's attitude. He was not easy to smiling either, but he was really doing his best to make her feel tended for. Maybe living with Tifa, who was so naturally caring and loving, had taught the blond one something about interacting with other humans. The girl looked briefly at him and then her gaze went back on Vincent's face, who was standing near the bed with a reflecting look on his face. He had been struck by how many times she and him had been in physical contact in just a few hours. She was a stranger whom he had met only the night before and was still nameless to him, but she also was the other living being he had touched the most in the last thirty years of his life. While they looked at each other without speaking, Vincent searched in her eyes for a proof of that mysterious power she had held over him a few hours before. When he had shaken her shoulders just minutes before he had not experienced anything strange, so it looked like the mysterious connection between them was all gone, but he was still afraid that it could come again. At the same time, something on him was desperate to feel like once more. And he felt guilty, because he didn't deserve to feel good, not even a little bit.

-Tifa was just making breakfast- Cloud said, breaking the tense silence and Vincent's train of thoughts -I'm going to fetch something for you.-

Vincent blinked ad looked at him. He suddenly felt quite afraid to be left alone with her, even if she looked as helpless as a child. All of a sudden he felt like she was taking away his air, like he needed to be away from her to breathe normally and be himself.

-I'm coming with you.- he said in a hurry, not even asking if it was fine for her to be alone.

Cloud looked at them with confusion in his eyes, but didn't say a word about it, and so the two men left the room together, leaving the girl alone in her bed.

Downstairs, Tifa was indeed making breakfast. When she saw the two of them, she smiled happily and left what she was doing to greet Vincent properly. As always, she looked like she wanted to hug him or kiss him on the cheeks, but she settled to a bigger smile. She didn't want to make things awkward between them, and she knew that the most common things could easily evolve into a disaster with Vincent.

-I'm so glad you are here! Sit, eat, and tell me all about it!- she exclaimed serving coffee and pancakes on the large bar counter.

Vincent automatically obeyed and sat on the nearest stool. He felt a debt of gratitude towards Tifa and Cloud for taking him and an almost dead stranger girl into their house in the middle of the night. Not to mention he had previously disappeared without saying a words for a couple of years, just after all the mess with Kadaj. They were kind people, and he knew how important it is to not abuse other people's kindness or to take it for granted. That was a very unusual situation, even for the member of Avalanche, and they had behaved perfectly. He surely owed them a big one, and it was certainly better to do anything Tifa said anyway.

Cloud sat beside him and started eating his pancakes slowly. He looked like he was considering the situation too.

-How's the situation upstairs? Should we call a family gathering?- Tifa asked, standing behind the counter and facing the two of them with a steaming mug in her beautiful hands.

-Let's first ear what Vincent has to say.- Cloud suggested, drinking some coffee.

As the two friends turned their attention to him, Vincent took a deep breath and looked at them with affection. They were always so active, so positive, so eager to be helpful and to do something to make the world a better place. He couldn't help but wonder how people like them endured the company of someone like him.

-Actually, I know almost nothing. She was in the Mansion and _he_ was there too. She tried to escape and... woke me up. I saw _him_ with her and… I had to do something. _He_ was so…-

Vincent couldn't explain how Hojo was. He had always trouble talking about him, and just thinking back of his evil smile and the way he had pulled the girl away from him was enough to make him sick. He took a sip of coffee to help himself put that memory behind and looked back at his two friends.

-Since she was in the Mansion with that man, do you think she has something to do with Shinra?- Tifa asked very practically.

Vincent felt very grateful to her for suggesting a different subject than Hojo.

-I don't know, but she doesn't look like she has got any Mako in her, does she?-

Cloud nodded in approval.

-She looks quite normal, to me- he said -But even if there's no Mako, who knows what where they up to with her?-

Cloud was right. When Hojo and the Shinra were involved, who knew what the hell was going on? Hopefully Reeve and the WRO could find something out, after all the WRO had been created specifically to research and mend the mess that Shinra had made with the world.

-We could ask Reeve's help and call the other to assist us investigate. But firsts things first: how is she? Does she need anything we can give her? Has she spoken of a family, someone whom we might trace to help her feel any better?- asked Tifa, again being very practical.

-She hasn't said a word, yet.- Vincent replied -I don't even know if she can talk at all.-

-I think she physically can- said Cloud -Because she has made noises in her sleep while we were there. But I don't know if she wants to talk, or if she is too traumatize to do it.-

There was a moment of silence in which Vincent considered how difficult things were rapidly becoming. Twelve hours before he was closed in his coffin with all eternity to think about his sins, and now he was more involved in the matters of the living than ever.

-Vincent, please listen to me.- said Tifa, interrupting his thoughts -We don't know what she has been through, and maybe we never will. If she doesn't want to tell us, I… I can't blame her. I don't even know if I really want to know. But we need her to say something, because we have to know what's going on. If it's dangerous, if it's… if it's Sephiroth, we have to know.-

She paused, because that name was never pronounced lightly among them. Cloud relaxed his shoulders, who had instantly tensed when that word had been pronounced.

-And you, Vincent, you are the one who can make her talk. You were there, after all, you saw her with _that_ _man_ , maybe even what he was doing to her. You saved her, and I am sure she trusts you now.-

-Actually, I didn't see what he was doing to her. She came to me trying to escape, and when he took her back I…-

Vincent stopped, realizing he was confessing the moment he had failed to raise to the occasion because of his stupid fear of physical contact.

-I just turned down electricity, went in that room, shot him and took her away. I didn't stop to look what was going on. I didn't think about that.-

He now realized that he should have planned more his actions and not behaved on the edge of instinct. If he had been more rational, the girl would be saved and they would now posses information about Hojo's experiments on her. Vincent had his Cerberus, while Hojo was likely unarmed, he could have never been dangerous for him even without the whole surprise effect. All that years of training in the Turks and he had just behaved like a stupid boy with a gun.

-Vincent, please, look at me- Tifa said, in a caring voice.

He couldn't help but obey.

-You did the only right thing to do: you saved her. This is what matters, the rest can be dealt with in some other way.-

-But I could have…-

-Please, listen to me. It's no use now wondering what could have been done differently, you did exactly what I hope you'd do if I were in her place. She is surely thankful and we are proud of you.-

Vincent looked at Cloud to check his opinion and found him with a truly encouraging look on his face. Then he looked back at Tifa, who was involuntarily leaning on the bar counter as if she wanted to make her words physically reach him.

-Now, you know we love you and we have always felt sorry for what happened to you. I know it must be difficult to face someone who has been through something similar to what you have experienced. But, Vincent, please consider this: maybe it's not only you who can help this poor girl, maybe she can help you too. It is possible that this girl is the person on the planet that understands better than anyone what you've been through, that has a profound connection to you and your past. I know it must be scary, but please look at this as an opportunity for your life too. And please know that you deserve to feel good. Don't run away from us again, and don't run away from this opportunity.-

After this, Tifa stood up, trying to hide how wet her eyes had become while she was talking.

Vincent was too shocked by what she had said to react in anyway. Cloud smiled kindly at her and nodded in approval.

-Denzel and Marlene will be up in no time- she said, quickly changing the subject -I will explain the situation to them and make sure this guest has all the room and silence she needs to feel better.-

Then she almost run upstairs without looking at them for another second.

Vincent felt guilty for bringing such sadness in his friend's lives, but Cloud looked at him very calmly and with a positive expression on his face.

-When you disappeared, she was the most worried of all of us. I think she needs to help you, because that's just who Tifa is. Sometimes it's confusing, but her feelings are sincere.- he explained -And she is right, you know?- he added.

-I'll do my best- Vincent replied, leaving the counter and walking towards the staircase.

As he stood in front of the door, Vincent felt a complex mixture of emotions. Tifa's words had been very strong and had left a profound impression on him, even if he had trouble believing in that heroic version of himself his friends were so sure to see. Now, however, there was no time to meditate about what he could or couldn't have done the night before, because he had a new task to complete: get as many information as he could from the girl.

Walking into the bedroom, he felt ashamed for having escaped like a coward, leaving a traumatized person all by herself. What if she had been ill while he was away? What if she had internal wounds that were slowly killing her and he had left her alone in an unknown place? Tifa saw this situation as an opportunity for him to leave his past behind, but right now he was just dwelling too much into his past and not taking the appropriate care of the present. Maybe, after all, that whole situation would become another sin to atone for.

The girl was now half-seated on the bed and she didn't look like she was about to die, but her eyes were fixed on the wooden floor and she didn't look up when he stepped in. Vincent rapidly checked the pajama and the bed to see if there was blood somewhere and was reassured to find none.

-I'm sorry.- he said, automatically. He really was.

She kept her eyes on the floor. Apparently she was thinking about something else, or maybe such a lame apology was not enough. Vincent closed the door behind him and tried to think about a plan to address the issues he needed to discuss with her. But now that she was out of the blankets, he found himself looking at her body instead. She was so thin, all bones and skin without any fat in her. She was also very small: her feet didn't touch the floor and the pajama Cloud had given her, which probably was Tifa's, made her look like a child who is playing dress up with her mother's clothes. Tifa was not a big woman, but she was undoubtedly gifted with a curvy shape, and this girl was more similar to a broomstick than to her. The girl's hair was dark, but not quite black, long and straight. It looked ruined, probably because she had not been eating in the right way for some time. The hair fell onto her face and her shoulder like a dark coat put on to mourn the death of someone loved. She looked like an old doll someone had forgotten in a dusty room for ages.

When she finally left her look up onto him, Vincent thought that the eyes were the only part of that body that looked alive. She was like a lost soul trapped in a fake body made of old wood. But those eyes were indeed living and had a silent plead inside. He would have liked to know what she was pleading for, but he was too afraid to ask. And he felt compassion for her because she seemed even more undone than him, which wasn't something he had witnessed very often in his life. She simply looked lost. What's the right way to talk to someone who looks like that?

Vincent took a deep breath and decided to seat on the other bed. Let's try beginning with something simple, he thought.

-May I ask what is your name?- he whispered, feeling like an average voice tone would hurt her somehow.

The girl swallowed and opened her mouth, but a shadow filled her eyes and no words came out. Vincent relaxed his shoulder, who had gone tense, and tried to figure out a back up plan.

-I'm sorry.- he said -My name is Vincent Valentine.-

Maybe she was not ready to tell a stranger her name, he couldn't blame her for that. So, he gave her his name. He said even the surname, and called himself stupid afterward, but the words had just rolled out of his mouth. The girl kept looking at him like nothing had ever happened, like he had never said a word.

Vincent was more and more confused. She was not responding at all. Could she be deaf? Maybe he couldn't hear him very well. But no, her eyes were definitely looking at him in very closely. Even if she was really deaf, she couldn't have missed a movement of his mouth.

While he was thinking, noises in the house made it very clear that Denzel and Marlene were up. The girl shuddered at the sound and looked very scared. So, she wasn't deaf at all.

-Please, don't be afraid. Everything is fine, it's just the kids.- he said, lowering again is voice.

She relaxed her shoulder, which he interpreted as a good sign.

-Can I please know your name?- he asked again, hopefully.

He hoped to not give away that he was starting to lose his patience. Her fixed look on his face was very distressing, and those eyes kept asking him a silent question he couldn't understand or answer. It seemed that what he had done the night before at the Mansion had been the easy part. This was the difficult one.

He suddenly felt like his body had just become quite heavier and exhausted. It seemed he was tired of all that trying to do the right thing and to be what she needed him to be. Or maybe his mind was tired, and the body just felt like it. Then, he realized he had been up all night, taking care of her. Maybe, after all, he really was physically weary.

He looked again in her direction. She was frozen in the very same position, her eyes fixed on him. How could he ever help her if she persisted in her complete silence? He needed something, a word, a gesture, an int of what he was supposed to do to make her feel something, to make her say who she was and what the hell Hojo had done to her!

Unable to face that persistent look any longer, Vincent buried his face in his own hands. Closing his eyes, he saw the image of Lucrecia. She was always so warm and smiling, like nothing in the world could go wrong. Maybe she would have known how to help that girl. It was quite unfair that she was stuck with him, she deserved better. She deserved…


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Vincent had a dream. A strange and confused dream about Lucrecia running in a field of flowers. He could see her but he was not physically there with her. She kept running and laughing under the sun, apparently by herself. She looked completely happy and her belly was round. Lucrecia was pregnant appeared to be celebrating the new life she was going to bring into the world. It was a beautiful sight and it hurt him so much.

As pain grew stronger, the dream changed. Now he was in a dark unknown place, completely alone. He felt sad, but also freed from a burden. She was no longer there and so he was not forced to witness her perfect happiness in which he had no place.

Suddenly a light came from above and it was hot and blinding, as if the sun that had shone in Lucrecia's field was now falling on him. He felt like he was about to die, and a sense of peace filled his heart. His sorrow was finally about to end.

He woke up to find his face hurting from the pressure of his own hands. He had fallen asleep seated on the bed, with his head on his hands. He swallowed and breathe for a while. There was no Lucrecia and no burning sun on top of him. This was real life and he was still alive, for better or worse.

He felt ashamed for dreaming that kind of stuff. It was like a psychology test on a newspaper. Do you still dream of her? You are not over her yet. Do you dream of dying? You are depressed.

Even his dreams were shit.

Wanting to take as much distance as he could from that awful display of his troubles, he forced himself to think back of what he was doing before falling asleep. He remembered asking the girl's name and her eyes on him.

Well, his dreams were crap, but reality was also not particularly satisfying. But while a dream can end, life ends only when you die, and that was not his day to do so. Therefore, he had to keep on living and dealing with what life decided to throw at him.

He took a very deep breath and raised his head from his hands. The bed in front of him wad empty. The girl was no longer there.

For a second, the idea that she had somehow disappeared from his life caressed him like a delicious smell. She was not his problem anymore, he was free. But then, he started to feel anxious about it. Where could she be? How was she? What if Hojo had found her again?

He was still asking himself this kind of questions when he suddenly realized that the right side of his body was burdened with a strange weight, like something was leaning on him. He looked in that direction and found out that the girl had not actually disappeared into thin air. She was asleep, leaning onto his body like he was a pillow. Her head was carefully laid onto his right thigh and the rest of her body was crouched on the bed, _his_ bed.

Vincent heard his heartbeat double its speed as panic spread through his body. He raised his arms into the air to avoid touching her and looked around in a desperate search for a way to escape that absurd situation. Suddenly he was very sure he would have preferred her to be literally anywhere else as long as that place was away from him and no more his business. But there she was, sleeping like a puppy. He couldn't help thinking that, for someone who refused to talk, she was particularly touchy.

After a few moments of unrest, Vincent told himself he needed to calm down. She appeared to be sleeping very soundly and, after all, there was no need for him to become insane about something like that. People react to trauma in all sorts of ways, this must have been part of her coping mechanism. She couldn't possibly know that he was scared of physical contact and she surely meant no harm. He had to remember that she was the victim in that situation, it was understandable that she behaved in a strange way. Also, who was he to judge if a behavior was to be considered strange at all? He was a grown man and could not make a fuss about that, it was just a girl sleeping on his leg.

When the words "a girl sleeping on his leg" crossed his mind, Vincent felt panic raising again. His muscles became stiffer and he held his breath for a while, but she just kept sleeping and he eventually began to adjust to her regular breath. When his mind come to terms with the idea of her sleeping on him, he started considering her more closely. She was so near that he could smell the disinfectant he had used on her. Her breathing made her body move in slow waves. He wondered if all humans looked like this in their sleep, if he himself seemed so harmless.

Vincent noticed that her lashes were long and curved and that she had freckles on her cheeks. Her lips were opened a bit and he could feel her warm breath expand on his skin through the leather of his trousers. He realized that his arms were still up in the air and felt very silly imagining how the whole ensemble would look if someone had opened the door. He lowered his arms and carefully put his left one behind her body, taking extra care to avoid any touching. He was trapped, but he slowly started to feel a little less uncomfortable.

He was relieved to notice that the mysterious power that had made him feel feverish the night before was not manifesting again. The last hours had been like a roller coaster for him, even the brief moments of sleep had been troubling, but now he was slowly starting to experience an unusual sense of tranquility. While she was asleep in her own bed, he had been busy asking himself questions and getting lost in is own troubles. But now his mind seemed simply tired of thinking about those things and he was actually pretty captivated by the girl he had saved. After all, he had forgotten the last time he had been so close to another human being. It was somehow a new and quite fascinating experience.

Who was this stranger that was so persistent in making physical contact with him? What story could she have? What past had led her to Hojo and then to him? Would she ever talk again? Will he ever know her name?

While he was getting lost in this sort of questions, she suddenly shifted her position a bit and Vincent's body tensed again instantly. He was afraid of waking her up, because he didn't know how to deal with her when she was conscious. He could not stand the persistent gaze of her eyes, so fixed and strong. It was definitely better for him if she kept those closed. Also, she looked quite relaxed in her sleep. Her body seemed no more like a broken doll, but a very human body, with a living spirit inside it. The rhythm of her breathing made it move in waves like a field of grass in the wind. It looked marvelously natural for someone who surely had been through some of the most unnatural things a human can experience.

Vincent was indulging in this kind of thoughts when all of a sudden the right pocket of his trousers started vibrating pretty aggressively. He was startled and the girl, whose neck was right on top of the vibrating spot, woke up instantly, opening her big eyes with a questioning look.

\- My phone...- Vincent muttered, feeling a complete idiot. Why on Earth one of his very few friends was calling him in that precise moment and why did he still have the phone in his pocket?

The girl left her sleeping position with a bit of regret in her eyes. She settled for seating on the bed very close to him, waiting while Vincent picked up the phone without a word. His friends were used to this habit of him, there was no need to say "hello".

-What is going on with you?!- screamed a girl at the other end of the phone call.

Vincent frowned.

-Yuffie, who gave you my number?-

-Tifa sent us a text saying that you are at the 7th Heaven with some girl you just rescued from I-don't-know-where! What do you think you're doing?!-

Why did she always have to be so loud?

-It's nothing for you to worry about. I just...-

He paused. He wanted Yuffie to think this was not a big deal, so maybe she would have stopped screaming in his ears. Also, it was actually none of her business. But the girl was so close to him and he didn't want to make her think her life was not important to them. He considered continuing the phone call outside of the room, but that made him feel like he was trying to hide something from her, and it seemed pretty unfair considering he was probably the only man on the whole planet she felt she could trust.

-You WHAT?!- screamed Yuffie, impatient and over the top like always.

-I helped someone who needed my help. It's nothing you have to worry about.- replied Vincent, quite satisfied with the way he had explained the situation.

-You are very wrong, Vincent Valentine! I'm coming there _right_ _now_ , and don't even think about disappearing again like you did last time! I'm serious, Vincent!-

-Are you not in Wutai?- he asked, hoping she was.

-Of course I am! Someone has to clean all the trouble some big corporation left beside!-

Vincent was almost sure she was accusing him of not helping with the cleaning.

-Then you are far away and very busy. It's no use to come here, I don't think it's necessary...-

-I do think it is!- she interrupted, at such a loud volume that Vincent started to think he could have heard her from Wutai even without a phone -And you better be still there when I arrive, or I'll come after you!-

That was actually a more frightening threat than the ninja girl could imagine. Vincent had learned to appreciate all his friends, but some of them were easier to appreciate when they were far away. But since he could not convince her to stay in Wutai and he had nothing else to say, he just ended the call without any further talking. And then he turned off his phone. Just in case.

-Sorry- he said to the girl who was with him.

But when he looked at her he saw something he was not prepared to witness. She was laughing. She had her hand over her mouth to cover the sound, but she was definitely having a laughter. Vincent was very surprised and felt a little bit offended because he had the suspect that she was laughing at him. He may be used to be scolded by Yuffie, but being an object of humor was a brand new experience. Probably his face told this story quite well because she glanced at him and immediately stopped. And so he felt guilty because she was having a good time and his pride had robbed her of that.

-I'm glad to see you laugh- he said, making an effort to sound friendly.

She smiled an almost invisible smile.

-How do you feel now?- he asked.

That change of mood somehow had worked on him too. He felt a bit more relaxed and words came more naturally to his mouth. The girl looked at him like she was considering her possibilities.

-Better- she answered, finally.

Her voice was rough and low, probably because she had been silent for so long, but she was talking and her eyes were now very different from before: no more strangely fixed, they gazed around the room and back to him. Vincent thought that this was encouraging. She was more present to herself and more active.

-My name is Vincent- he said again, not sure that she was paying attention the first time he had said his name.

-I know- she replied.

-And you are...?- he tried.

She smiled again, this time lowering her eyes.

-No one.- she answered.

Vincent frowned. That conversation had turned in the wrong direction pretty fast. He was already feeling less optimistic.

-How should I call you, then?- he asked, involuntarily showing a bit of resentment in his voice.

She stood silent, as if she was considering her position. Then, she shook her head.

-I think I'll need a new name. Maybe you can give me one?-

Sometimes there were moments when people behaved in such a strange way what Vincent regretted to be part of the humankind. He had never been a master in social skills, but when people started to say completely irrational things he felt like he was about to just shoot everyone and be forever done with it. Sometimes he missed the solitude of his coffin and this was most surely one of those moments. Why everything had to be so difficult? How could she say something like that? Why was he supposed to give an unknown girl a name when she could easily tell him her real one? What was the meaning of that crazy answer?

-I'm sorry. I just can't.- she added, as if she could read in his mind.

Vincent felt ashamed for showing his distress in such an open way. How many times he had to repeat to himself that she was suffering the aftermaths of a trauma and some strange behavior was to be expected and tolerated?

-Don't worry- he said -At least you are talking.-

-I'm sorry to be such a mess- she said -I wanted to answer your questions before but it was impossible. My voice was lost. _I_ was lost.-

He wished he had something clever to say, but he didn't, so he just stood silent. Now that she was talking, it was impossible to wait to ask the questions that needed to be urgently answered. He didn't want to do it, but Tifa and Cloud had assigned that task to him and he had to try. After all, it could really be a matter of life and death.

-I need to ask you some questions about what... What was happening in the Mansion. It's for your own safety, and also to protect other people. May I? - he asked, trying again to be as friendly as he could.

She nodded and Vincent tried to put some order in his brain. Now every word was important and he had to choose carefully.

-How long were you in the Mansion?- he asked first. This was a relatively simple question, not too intimate or too scary. He was confident that she could take it and answer it as best as she could.

-I don't know exactly, but I guess a few years. It felt like a long time.-

He had been right. Of course Hojo hadn't provided her with a clock or some kind of calendar, so he hadn't expected a detailed answer, but it was worth asking. Also, he wanted to know if she had been down there for some days or a very long time. As it appeared, it had been a long imprisonment. Vincent took a deep breath while she stood there waiting for him to do something.

-Do you have a family or someone we can call to come and be with you?-

This was also quite an easy question. Either she had, and so they could call someone to help, or she hadn't, and they were alone in the management of this situation. Vincent was not sure which one of the two alternatives was preferable.

-No.- she answered, like she was in a hurry. He noticed that her hands were shaking. Maybe that was a much bigger question than he had foreseen.

-Are you sure? Not even a friend?- he carefully questioned.

The girl looked at him with a gaze that suggested that his asking again was almost a betrayal. She looked like the question had hurt her on a physical level. Vincent guessed that maybe he had given the impression of asking for the sake of getting rid of her, which of course was somehow true, but not all of it. He found common sense to think that someone who knew her could help in ways he and the others, who were strangers, never could.

-I just want to help you- he said, trying to make it clear that he was not asking because he wanted to get rid of her.

-I have no one. I think you...-

She stopped mid-sentence, as if she was about to spill a big secret. Now it was Vincent's turn to wait for further explanations.

-You shot _him_ , right?- she asked, almost trembling -Did he die?-

Vincent closed his eyes and remembered the moment he pulled the trigger.

-It was too dark, I can't be sure. But I promise he won't get to you as long as you stay with me.-

He surprised himself. He had meant to say "with us", but somehow words came out differently. But she smiled and that made him feel less awkward. It seemed he had said the right thing, after all.

-How long can I stay here?- she asked, gazing around the room.

-This is my friends' house. I don't live here, so I can't really answer that.-

She looked back at him with a concerned expression.

-I'm sure they will let you stay as long as you need. But you can ask them later, if you want, they were worried about you.- he suggested.

She seemed even less happy and Vincent frowned. He had the uncomfortable feeling that every time he spoke she became more upset.

-I'm not sure I'm ready to talk to other people...- she muttered, as if she was taking not to him but to herself.

-You are talking to me.- he pointed out.

She closed her eyes and smiled mysteriously.

-You are you- she replied.

Vincent had reached and crossed the limit of his natural loquacity and it was pretty clear that he was not managing the conversation in a good way. But he needed to ask more questions and, having ruled out the easy ones, all he was left with were the most unpleasant.

-I don't want to ask this, but I can't help it.- He paused, letting those words sink into her. - What did he do to you? Do you know what he was aiming for?- he inquired, as slowly and as kindly as he could.

The girl swallowed what looked like a very bitter bite and lowered his eyes to the floor. She started tormenting her left hand with the right one and she looked like she was about to vomit. Of course those were not easy questions, Vincent was more than ready to wait and give her all the time she needed. He just hoped to get some kind of answer that could lead to an understanding of what was going on. Every int could be important. He did not expect her to be fully aware of Hojo's research plan, but maybe she could remember some details or know something that could lead them in the right direction.

While silent minutes passed she looked on the verge of talking for a couple of times, but no actual words came out of her. Eventually, she raised her gaze on Vincent's face and there was no need to speak at all. Her eyes were pleading him to take back his question. He looked away. He could not stand that look.

-What if... I asked only yes-or-no questions? Would it be easier?- he suggested, forcing himself to look back at her.

She nodded, but she looked like she was about to faint.

-You can stop me if things get too...-

He couldn't find ad adjective, but he was sure she had understood. She took a very deep breath and nodded. She was willing to try.

-So, did he perform some experiment on you? -

The question was followed by silence and Vincent looked carefully at her, to catch every int of an answer. She was shaking, but her head moved up-down. It was an affirmative response. He was not surprised, but he had hoped somehow there was another explanation. Now he needed to know if the Shinra was involved. Of course she could be perfectly unaware of that, but if someone else had been there with Hojo it would have been very difficult to think he was just doing some crazy experiments alone in his madness.

-Was there ever someone else in the laboratory?- he tried.

She shook her head. That had been an easy question.

Now, what if Hojo had lectured her about his grand design? He had done that with Vincent before, so he could totally imagine that man bragging about his great discoveries with his own victim. Maybe his pride could become his own downfall.

-Did he ever explain what he was doing or what his experiments were for?-

She shook her head again. She was almost in tears now. It was understandable, because even the simply questions forced her to think back to her time in that laboratory. He hoped she could endure some more. Having ruled out that Hojo was with someone else and that he had talked about his experiments, things were actually getting more difficult. Vincent had no options left but to guess what the man was doing by considering his actions. And, since the girl was the only one who had been witness of those actions, she had to tell him what the hell Hojo had done to her, if she was awake to see it.

-Were you conscious during the experiments? Even a small part of it?-

She instantly burst into tears, breathing heavily and in a difficult way. Vincent recognized the beginning of a panic attack and grabbed her hand, holding it firmly into his own.

-It's over.- he said, trying to speak in his calmest tone -You will never have to endure something like that again. I just need to…-

He couldn't finish his sentence because she threw herself over him, clinging desperately onto his shoulder, almost like she had done when he was still in his coffin. Vincent went stiff like a piece of wood, his muscles almost hurting for the sudden effort. He wanted to be everywhere else, but he was there and he had no choice but to hold her and try to calm her down. So he bit his lower lip and laid his hands on her back, just below her shoulders, hoping to communicate a sense of safety.

-Please, breathe deeply and count backwards from 20 to 1.- he whispered. She was now crying very loudly and hitting his chest with her forehead repeatedly. He was not in pain, of course, but she could have hit herself pretty badly against his clothes' straps.

Since it didn't seem to work and he was risking a panic attack himself, Vincent began counting for her, at first with a shaky voice. As the numbers decreased he got calmer and surer of what he was doing and, by the time he had arrived to 11, she had started following him with a low and trembling voice. At the end of the counting she was almost unconscious and he was promising to himself that he would have never touched another living being for the rest of his life. It was simply too much for him. He couldn't do it.

-I'm sorry- she said, her voice only a low whisper against his chest.

Vincent felt the heat of her breath spread through the cloth of his clothes. He felt exhausted as he usually did after a long fight or after Chaos took control over his body. He was actually quite surprised that the demon had not taken him over in that situation, since he was almost sure it was more likely to happen when he was in absolute distress.

-Don't be.- he replied, finding out his own voice was also nothing more than a tired whisper. He felt sorry enough for both of them. He was so weary. The muscles of his back ached a little for the tension and the effort of keeping himself seated while she leaned over him. She was very light, actually, her thin body felt nearly weightless, but he was almost crushed by the psychological weight of having another person between his arms. He wished to retreat but, despite looking very much like a dead thing, she was surely conscious and he could not simply move her away like a pillow. Her fingers were holding the cloth so tightly on his shoulders that he could feel the shape of her nails in his skin. She clearly needed to be right were she was.

After a while, the girl removed her face from his chest and looked up to him.

-I'm so sorry…- she muttered, letting go of his clothes and holding herself up from his body. Vincent felt a chilly sensation where she had previously laid and looked closely while she stood up from his bed and crawled slowly on her own. She laid there under the blankets, facing the wall and showing Vincent her back. He waited for a few minutes to see how the situation would evolve but she was motionless and silent. Maybe she had fallen asleep or she was too tired to deal with him anymore. Vincent felt like he was ten years older than one hour before.

When he stood up and tried to shake all those feelings out of his body, he checked one last time if she reacted in some way to his movements. Nothing happened and he felt the urge to go out, maybe even out of the whole building, in the street, and take a big deep breath of fresh air. Then, he had to talk to Tifa and Cloud. He had not discovered much, but he desperately needed to interact with someone who was not on the brink of a mental breakdown.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The rest of the day felt like walking barefoot on a path made of shattered glass.

After breathing the much needed fresh hair of the streets, Vincent had to explain Cloud and Tifa how his questioning had gone. They were really kind and supportive trying to make him feel like he had achieved some great goal, but the ugly truth was that he had discovered nothing new and that she was now in even greater distress because of his questions. Tifa pointed out that at least she was talking and that her laughter was a good sign, even if it looked like some hysterical reaction, but he felt simply inadequate and guilty.

Then, one by one, Barret, Cid and Yuffie. And every time someone had to explain the whole situation again because not one of them could bare to wait for the whole family to be there to receive an explanation. They wanted to know immediately what was going on. They were eager to do something and save the world again. Because of this, Vincent had to go through it all again and again while Tifa struggled to make him look like the hero he surely wasn't. He knew his friends were probably the best people in the whole world to handle that kind of situation, but he was very much concerned with his role in their plans: no one seemed to doubt the fact that the girl would interact only with him, so they were all talking about what he was supposed to do, what he should or shouldn't say to her. That made him feel trapped.

Also, he was probably the most unfitting human being to give any kind of help to a person in such circumstances. Hadn't he made a mess trying to talk to her? Why were they so confident about his possibility to make things right?

At the end of the day, a plan had been decided. Reeve - who had phoned in since he could not leave his work at the WRO - was going lead a quick investigation at the Shinra Mansion and try to find records of the girl's past. The others were supposed to stay at the 7th Heaven and wait for the first results to know if something big was going on or if it was just Hojo on his own being the crazy man he had always been. Which meant that Barret, Yuffie and Cid were going to live there for a while. Which, summed up with Vincent himself, the girl, and the four people who already lived there (Cloud, Tifa, Marlene and Denzel) meant that nine people with very different needs and characters needed to figure out how to live together were there was barely enough room for six of them.

Cloud didn't look as happy as Tifa to have all this people in their house. While she accepted everyone with her warm smile and her kindness, he looked a bit overwhelmed by the noises produced by his friends deciding how to fit into the not so many bedrooms of the building. While the arrangements where still being made, he silently left the center of the stage to find himself far from the action and near the only quiet man in the room, who of course was Vincent.

-I think I'm going to share my room with Barret- Cloud whispered.

Vincent could not tell if he was just stating a fact or complaining about it.

-Where am I supposed to sleep?- he asked, hoping to rest at least for the night.

-Oh- Cloud looked surprised -You will stay in the room where you are now, with our guest.-

Vincent frowned. He loved his friends very much, they were precious people who had lots of quality. But were they insane? Why were they putting him in a room with an unknown person? Who did they think he was? Her watchdog? Her guardian? Was there an invisible rope that tied him to her? He was almost about to protest that decision when Cloud called him to gain his attention.

-I know it's not an ideal arrangement for you, but every other option looks worse to me. We cannot simply put her in a room with someone she has never been with before, even if that some is Tifa. She has spoken only to you since she has been out of the Mansion. Also, if Tifa and her share the room, one of us men has to sleep with Yuffie. Are you volunteering? Because I am not.- he said.

Vincent shivered thinking about sleeping in the same room with the ninja. That was definitely not an option that would grant him a long night of peaceful sleep.

-Can't I just stay here, on the sofa?- he asked.

Cloud shook his head.

-The sofa is occupied by Cid. Also, I don't think we can leave her alone like that. What if she feels bad in the middle of the night? What if she has another nightmare like the one we saw this morning? I think you know how to deal with her.-

And you are very wrong, thought Vincent. He didn't know how to deal with anyone, but he most surely didn't know how to behave towards her.

-We also need to make her eat something or she will never recover. I don't know what you are supposed to feed to someone who has not eaten properly for a long tine, but Tifa has prepared some ice cream. I can guarantee it is very good. Could you bring some upstairs?- Cloud asked.

Vincent nodded. Hours have passed since he had last been in the bedroom with her and it was not wise to live someone in that state alone for such a long time. He actually had been wondering about going upstairs for a while, and now it seemed the right time to finally do it. When he had left the room she had looked so exhausted that he doubted she could even cry for help if needed. It was absolutely time to go check on her and, maybe, make amends for the questioning disaster.

When he stepped into the room with the little bowl of ice cream in his right hand, Vincent felt almost like a waiter. The bowl was cold in his hand but it gave him a purpose to explain his presence and something to aim for while he was there. He had come to bring ice cream. His mission was to make her eat it.

The girl was still on the bed, curled up in the very same position he had left her. But this time, hearing his steps she turned to face him and smiled weakly. Vincent felt his heart ache at the sight of the dark circles around her eyes and the pallor of her skin. She must have felt indeed very bad and he had escaped leaving her alone for long hours. His own body was still quite tense from their "hugging", but he was now more in control of the situation and was committed to his task. He closed the door and walked in her direction until she saw the ice cream in his hands and made a more interested look.

-Tifa has made this for you- he said -Do you want to try and eat some?-

She took a deep breath and then conquered a seating position, shaking a little. Vincent felt a little bad for not offering to help her, but maybe it had been better that way. She needed to have her independence back and he sure needed to avoid touching anything that was alive for a while.

-You are very weak- Vincent commented while she leaned her back against the wall -You need to eat.-

He offered her the food and she took it. Vincent sat on his own bed and waited while she grabbed the little spoon with her hand and played a little with the ice cream, as if she needed to check it before eating it. He followed her movements without a word, curious to see what she would do. She looked like a child who is slowly recovering from a long illness. The clothes she was wearing was far too big and she looked like she had somehow shrunk inside it. Her lips were almost the same colour as the skin around them. Vincent was not an expert, but he thought that was not a sign of health. Cloud was right, she needed to start eating as soon as possible.

She looked at the food for such a long time that when she finally put a very small amount of ice cream in her mouth and closed her lips on the little spoon, Vincent almost held his breath in anticipation. She closed her eyes and relaxed her previously tense body tasting what was inside her mouth. He felt almost embarrassed. It looked like a very intimate moment, but he was witnessing everything. Still, he was curious about the result of his mission.

-Do you like it?- he asked, trying to make the awkwardness he felt go away.

She opened her eyes on him and smiled a little.

-It's so good- she replied, and took another spoon of ice cream in her mouth.

He felt relief. The fact that she was so willing to eat was surely to be seen as a sign of her well-being. He felt like the girl had earned a point in her match against Hojo. Screw you, Vincent thought, she is alive and well. You have lost her and she is free from you, bastard.

A gentle knock on the door shook him away from his imaginary dialogue with his enemy and the girl looked very attentively while Tifa walked into the room. The Nibelheim girl smiled seeing that her unknown guest was eating and she even gave Vincent a look of praise, like he was responsible for the success of the ice cream mission.

-Hi- she said -I'm Tifa. I don't want to bother you, but I was just wondering if you are ok and if you need something. We are here to help you.-

From his position, Vincent could see that Cloud was on the door, just behind it, watching if everything was going well. He wondered how they had dealt with Denzel when Cloud had rescued him from the old church in Sector 5. Maybe that had been the occasion when they had discovered that ice cream was a good idea for a traumatized and starved person.

The girl on the bed smiled to her new acquaintance but didn't say a word. Tifa looked a bit sad but very supportive and didn't surrender to that difficulty.

-I know that what you have been through is not easy to process, but please know that you can stay in this house as long as you need, and you can always send Vincent to fetch anything you want. We are all here to help you recover and feel better.-

Both girls looked at him with absolute trust and he felt it was better for him to nod and show some solidarity with Tifa's effort to sound warm and welcoming.

-This is your room and no one will disturb you here. Vincent is going to sleep here and take care of you, if you like it. Please don't worry about anything, we will gladly supply all the things you might need.-

The girl looked relieved and Vincent recognized that Tifa was amazing in her motherly way to reassure people. She had a great heart and was not afraid to show it to others. Such a quality deserved his admiration.

The girl took another spoon of ice cream and Tifa smiled at the success of her culinary art. She waved goodbye with her hand and walked silently out of the room, closing the door behind herself.

Vincent couldn't help to hear Yuffie's voice ask Tifa how was the "strange girl". Apparently, not only Cloud had been waiting in the corridor.

His guest seemed even calmer now, she was still eating and she looked almost relaxed. He asked himself why his friends were so determined to make him do all the difficult work while Tifa was so naturally good at it. Couldn't she take care of all the delicate human situations and call him only when there was someone or something to shoot at?

-Can I ask you something?- the girl said, suddenly.

He carefully nodded in response.

-What were you doing down _there_? Why were you in a coffin?-

Vincent frowned. That was probably a very understandable question and he should have expected to be asked something like that sooner or later, but he didn't want to talk about himself. Explaining his strange behaviour required speaking about Lucrecia and his past. He was not going to do that.

-It's a long story- he answered -One I won't tell.-

The girl looked at him very intensely.

- _He_ told me something... About you.- she said, biting her lower lips as she was confessing something bad she had made.

Vincent felt tempted to bite his own to manage his distress. Why was Hojo incapable of leaving him be? What satisfaction could the scientist receive by telling this girl about him? Was that to brag about his previous achievements? Well, there was not much to be proud of, Vincent thought. If not for Lucrecia's involvement, Hojo would have simply killed him. He himself had killed a few men and knew there was really nothing to be proud of.

The girl shifted a bit to put the now empty bowl of ice cream on a little table that was near the head of the bed. Then she sat back with her hands resting on her legs.

-He said you loved a woman, long time ago, and you made a mistake that ruined your life.- she explained avoiding his gaze.

Vincent felt a wave of rage crushing trough is body. How dared he? How dared he speak about Lucrecia and his love for her? That… monster! That filthy being who had no notion of love himself and who had nothing to protect his own wife from the consequence of…

The girl was looking at him with a very concerned expression and Vincent somehow found the strength to suffocate his fury deep down in the corner of his heart where he usually kept it. What he felt now was only bitterness caused by Hojo's inexact description of his sentiment for Lucrecia: he had not loved her long time before, he loved her still, with his every breath. And for that precise reason he could not talk about her with anyone, this girl was not going to be an exception.

-I don't understand how loving someone could ruin your life- she said, looking at her own hands, almost like she was thinking out loud.

Oh, I could teach you, Vincent thought, I am an expert of this particular matter. I know how too much love can almost kill you and still leave you breathing so you can keep hurting day after day. I can show you how someone can consume your will to live just by not loving you back.

-I hope you'll never have to understand that.- he said instead. His voice felt flat and toneless.

She looked back at him with uneasy eyes, but Vincent was no more paying much attention to her. He felt dried of all his energy. Thinking about Lucrecia often made him feel like that. She had that power over him. He felt he needed to live only because she had saved his life once, but it was because of her that he didn't want to face another day. He felt guilty: his love for her was wrong, poisoned and unworthy.

-I'm sorry I asked.- the girl said.

Vincent looked back at her. Here eyes were now fixed on the floor. She looked like she felt guilty for upsetting him. He was surprised by himself. Normally he had a lot of control over his facial expression, but that particular time he must have showed all his distress. She really looked like she was feeling guilty. But she couldn't have known what her asking would trigger, it was not right to blame her. He wanted to tell her there was nothing to worry about, but he lacked words, so he stood there, silent as a wall, while the late summer sun went down to meet the city horizon. And she stood there herself, breathing lightly as if she was worried to be too noisy and disrespect his silence.

-I don't know why he talked about you- she said after a while -But I'm so happy he did, because otherwise I would still be there.-

Vincent was surprised by those words, but there was clearly truth in what she has said. It was quite distressing to imagine Hojo bragging about destroying his life with her but once again Vincent felt there was a sort of heavenly justice in that situation. Ironically, he would have never rescued her if Hojo himself hadn't told her he was there. It serves you well, he thought, now you can collect what you have sown.

The distress brought by the conversation about Lucrecia's was still lingering, but the thought of Hojo being punished by karma and his own stupidity made him feel undoubtedly better. Now that she had stopped reminding him of things he wanted to forget, Vincent glaced at the girl with renewed interest. Her eyes were now fixed on the window and she looked captivated by the sight of the sunset.

-It's been so long- she muttered, almost talking to herself -So long since I last saw the sunlight-

Vincent felt sympathy for her. He had left the human world to go back to his coffin because things like the sunlight held no place in his heart. He had lost the ability to appreciate nature and its wonders a long time before. But she was so different from him, so human in her passion for the light that came through the window. It was an encouraging thing: she still cared about life and its little miracles, like a sunset over a grey city like Edge. He knew nothing about that, but he wished that meant she was getting ready to go on with her life.

He noticed she was trembling lightly, like a bird about to fly away, and that made him almost smiled. What a wonderful mystery was to be human and to be able to rise again after being turned asunder. And how bizarre that a strange creature like himself had played a part in her rebirth. That made him feel a little proud of himself. For the first time in years, he felt like he had done something right. It was a strange and unusual feeling, but not quite an unpleasant one.

She slowly got up from the bed, standing on her naked feet and trembling a bit. She looked like she wanted to go to see what was out of the window but she was clearly not ready to walk on her own. Without thinking what he was doing, Vincent offered a helping hand. It was only when she grabbed it, first lightly and then firmly, that he was shaken from his thoughts and realized he had offered himself freely to the touch of someone else. He was very surprised to see how contact had so swiftly become a common thing. The body sure gets used to anything way faster than the mind can, he thought.

The girl's hand was very small and felt warm in his own. He remembered when they had put their hands together the night before to make her feel she was in control of every touching that would happen to her. Now she had taken his hand without any hesitation. She trusted him and his touch. She looked at him with big hoping eyes. Those eyes said he was her hero and she was in his hand, literally and metaphorically. It was a look that communicated such trust in him that Vincent felt very tempted to trust himself too. That look said she was so sure about him that he had no reason to doubt himself.

He stood up, slowly guiding her through the room. She followed, putting one foot carefully in front of the other. Vincent looked at her feet and found them so much smaller than his own. She made him think again of a sparrow who had just survived a very hard storm.

When finally the sparrow looked through the window, she looked amazed by the twilight in the grey city. She stared at the people out there as if it was the first time she saw other humans. Vincent looked too. There was nothing unusual about the landscape: people were walking on the streets with their errands and their lives. Some of them had packages or bags, as the economy of the city was slowly rising after the big crisis. A man was holding hands with a baby girl, probably his daughter, who followed his steps jumping a little. A woman was walking her big dog, a brown thing with long fur who stopped every now and then to sniff around. Cid was on the street too, smoking a cigarette and looking at the sky, with some strange flying vehicle surely on his mind.

Vincent looked at him with affection. Despite being very different from him, Cid might be the one he liked the most amongst all the Avalanche members. He was always so cheerful and friendly, but he knew exactly where to stop to not make him feel awkward or out of place.

The girl suddenly grabbed his hand tighter and he stopped thinking about Cid. She was silently crying and shaking a little. Big heavy tears were running down her cheeks. He couldn't tell if those were tears of sadness or joy, but she certainly looked like she could no longer stand on her feet. After all, she was still too weak.

-You should rest now- he suggested, slowly guiding her back to the bed. She sat on it and Vincent stepped back, leaving her hand. She was crying no more, and she looked a little relieved.

-Thank you- she said, smiling to him. Her eyes were still wet and bright.

The little sparrow was not ready to fly yet, but Vincent felt reassured. She was still dreaming the sky.

It was night on the city and Vincent was deeply asleep in his bed. He was dreaming about the see. Not the sight of it, just the noise of the waves dying on the beach. He couldn't see anything, but he knew it was the sea in the way we know things in our dreams. It was not a very active dream. Only the noise of the sea and the recurring sound of the waves on the shore. He was not particularly happy nor sad. He just heard the noises. The waves made him feel very calm and relaxed, like the whole world was breathing and that was the breath's noise. Then he heard someone call his name and woke up instantly.

The room was dark but some of the street light came through the window and he could distinguish the shapes of some objects. There were no noises except from the breathing of the girl somewhere on his left, which appeared quite calm. She was probably asleep in her bed. He guessed the voice calling his name had been part of the dream and stood still.

It was not unusual for him to wake up in the middle of the night. He usually stood there waiting patiently to fall asleep again. Not that he had something else to do anyway.

So, as always, he laid there listening to the sounds around him with his eyes closed. There was not much noise. Sometimes a vehicle passed along the street and a dog barked in the distance. The city was asleep and so was the house. Vincent had not enhanced senses like Cloud, so he couldn't hear the others breathing in their sleep, but he could imagine them.

Cid on the sofa downstairs, fallen asleep with tons of papers around him and sketches of a new flying machine. He was always inventing something new. Sometimes those sketches were brought to life and sometimes not, but his mind was always busy.

Cloud and Barret were sharing a room like they had done so many times before in the old days of Avalanche. The blond one probably had to endure long and enthusiastic explanations about the new adventures that Barret was living in his post-eco-terrorist life. But not before being questioned about Marlene and hearing the big guy praise how she was growing up so fast and becoming more and more like her late mother everyday.

Tifa and Yuffie were sleeping together and Vincent had no clue what the girls did when no man was around. He hoped Yuffie was allowing Tifa to sleep. The ninja was so energetic and hyperactive that he sometimes doubted she needed to sleep at all. But of course when she was up in the air in was all very different, he thought with a half smile.

Marlene and Denzel had been particularly cheerful during the dinner and they had questioned him about the girl as long as Tifa had let them. They really were growing up very fast, as Barret liked to point out. He had seen the two children for the last time when the Avalanche had to face Kadaj's menace and they had changed so much since then. Marlene, in particular, was clearly almost a young woman now. Vincent wondered if she was aware of that and if her school mates had already started to succumb to her charm. Denzel had gotten taller and slimmer and reminded him of a bamboo cane. It had been so long since Vincent had been their own age that he watched the children feeling like they belonged to a different species than his own. He really was becoming an old man.

And then there was the girl he had rescued, quietly asleep in the bed near his own. Vincent looked in her direction but the room was too dark to see anything but a general shape of someone lying under the blankets. He hoped she was not having a nightmare and that she could sleep happily all night long.

Then he thought about the night before. He remembered that strange feeling he had felt when she had brought his hand on her face. That tingling sensation. That electric current under his skin. That fever. Twenty four hours later, just thinking about it made him feel dizzy again. The skin on his arms was having goosebumps. He felt ridiculous and also a little bit intrigued. He had never felt like this before. What was it all about? Was it her or just touching someone after a very very long time? Was it a good thing or a bad one? Was it a human reaction or was it Chaos doing something strange to his body?

Thinking about that demon made Vincent melancholic. Chaos was a pain in the ass, of course, but it had been almost a gift from her. A life saving gift, which of course was also an eternal curse.

But it was useless to think about it. Lucrecia had done what she could to save him, and she had succeeded. The cost was his own to pay.

But the girl in the bed near him was something entirely new. What had Hojo done to her? Would she ever be able to lead a normal life? Or maybe was a normal life something overestimated?

Vincent wouldn't know. It had been ages since anything normal had been part of his life. And that strange feeling when he had touched her face. It felt almost like an awakening of something that had been asleep for a very long time. A sleep deep and dull almost like death. But not quite death, as it appeared. Vincent was afraid of it, of himself. Maybe it was Chaos, or maybe it wasn't. And what if it was just his own body being a body? Did he want to have a body that reacted that way? He feared not. What good could come from a body who wanted to be touched?

Vincent felt ridiculous. He was a grown man (some, including himself, would say he was an old one) and he had spent decades without making physical contact with anyone. Now it was not the time to suddenly feel emotional about a stranger he had somehow managed to save. All that nonsense about feeling goosebumps when he touched her was surely something other people experienced everyday without making a fuss about it. He found that so strange because he had not being in physical connection with anyone for ages, but it surely had no sense to dwell in those meaningless considerations.

The facts were these: she was no one to him and he was no one to her. She had had a life before being taken by Hojo and she would make a life for herself in the future. And both lives would be without him. He was just a transitory presence, like someone who gives you a lift from a place to another.

After all, he had a life too. A very solitary and unhappy one, but that was his own. That was how it was meant to be. He could not turn his world upside down for the first girl passing by. Yes, she looked afraid and in need, and surely she was. But it was not his job to be her hero, he had already done his part to help her. Now she was still recovering from a very traumatic experience and it was very understandable that she needed a little bit of time to walk on her own feet and being sensible and caring during that time was absolutely the right thing to do. But the whole process would take no more than a few days, maybe a week or two. Soon she would be able to fly away and he would be back to his old life and, most importantly, his old self.

No more touching. No more strange sensations and silly thoughts. Just a week. Maybe two.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

A week after that night, Vincent was less sure of his own words than ever. Not only the girl was still there, but things were not moving in the right direction at all.

A few days after Vincent's night of good and wise resolutions, Reeve had reported to them that the Shinra mansion had been searched with very disappointing results: Hojo or his body were nowhere to be seen in the building or in the surrounding area, all the files had been erased from the computers and, a part from the clear signs of a long term captivity in a room underground and some blood on the laboratory floor, nothing about the scientist or the girl had been recovered. Reeve had mentioned only a journal or a diary and had promised to bring the item to them as soon as he had finished a preliminary examination.

So, Hojo was probably still alive. It was very unlikely that he could have died for infection or complications of a wound that left not much blood on the floor. He was a doctor, after all, and a very good one, despite his madness. Vincent had hoped to kill the man right on the spot, but, of course, luck had not been on his side.

Apart from that, the girl's identity mystery had not been solved yet. She was still nameless, still incapable or not willing to explain anything, and still there. Every night Vincent told himself that the day after something new would happen and the situation would finally evolve. But every day was very much like the one before.

The whole situation was not good, but his friend's behavior was puzzling to hin. Something like a routine had settled and everyone seemed so relaxed about it. He was almost mad at them for their ability to go on with their lives like nothing strange was happening. How could they do that knowing that Hojo was still alive? And what about the experiments? Vincent couldn't help to look at the girl like she was a bomb about to explode. What had Hojo been doing to her? What was the meaning of her captivity?

The others seemed very calm about the whole situation. Cloud was away all day long on his big motorbike to run his delivery business, the kids went to school and the 7th Heaven opened every evening at the usual hour. People would come and drink, chat, meet and live their lives. There was a palpable sense of optimism in the air. The people of Edge were moving on. There were birthday parties again and people fell in love or broke up, had fights and made peace with each other. All the things that had been put on hold since the Shinra crisis were going back to their flow. Humans were going on like humans do so well.

But not Vincent. And not the girl.

They were stuck in their motionless lives. And they were also stuck together in that bedroom that she refused to leave and he couldn't escape from. She went outside only to go to the nearest bathroom a few times everyday and he spent as much time as he could away from that room. But being out of it meant also existing in the real world, where friends want to talk to you and people look at you in a strange way, because you are very much out of place.

Evenings were particularly difficult. People who came at the bar to have a nice night out looked a little intimidated when a strange man with a long red cloak and pointy shoes sat in the loneliest corner of the room. Vincent had tried different clothes to blend in but it seemed there was something in him that made people uncomfortable even when he was wearing the most usual things. Tifa looked nervous too when he was in the room with the customers because she sensed that tense atmosphere. The bar was definitely not an option for him.

Which left no more possibilities to be explored. Cid and Barret enjoyed the bar atmosphere with drinks, music and people, and were determined to make him a more socially acceptable man. Vincent was not up for the challenge. So, it was better to stay away from them.

Cloud enjoyed taking a long bath and being alone after a day spent between the dust of the road and the small talks with the customers of his delivery service. And when he was not alone, he spent a lot of time with Denzel and Marlene, helping them study or doing things like chatting, reading books, listening to music, things that normal people do and Vincent couldn't find the right mindset to enjoy. Cloud was not an option either.

Which left Yuffie. Who was always so eager to talk to him, to tell him everything about anything and to hear his opinion. It was simply too much. Vincent didn't want to talk about anything but two things: why were they all so relaxed about the girl being there and why was she not leaving and/or not telling them anything to unlock that situation?!

In the end, he always found himself back in his room, which was actually their room, as she was there too. And strangely it was so easy to be together in that small place because she seemed to understand perfectly how he wanted to stay silent and maybe just look at the walls with nothing to say. She spoke very rarely and mostly when a question was asked. In a world where everyone wanted to interact, she looked like every word said to her could harm was like a fortress completely shut to the outside world. Except for the eyes, who were always gazing around like she was searching for something. And those eyes were full of emotions and changes of colour. Vincent could see right through them because the emotions in there were very familiar to his own.

They both didn't want to speak because every time they opened their mouths there was the frightening possibility that they would talk about what they didn't want to put ever into words. Their past, the things that Hojo had done to them, their feelings, the constant fear of going through that all over again. They were afraid to go too far and tell someone what it was like, to hear their own voice pronounce words that their mind was constantly struggling not to think.

Vincent felt that she was going through all of that because he had been living that situation for decades. He was quite an expert. He knew sometime it was almost like the past was forgotten, like a background noise you almost can't hear. Other times it was all very near to the surface, and the temptation to scream and throw it all out for others to see was very strong. But it was always important to resist. No one deserved to know and it was too much shameful to share those memories. Vincent knew it was a constant struggle and it was both very strange and very easy to recognize the symptoms of his own madness on someone else's face.

Like Tifa had said on their first day there, the girl understood him like no one else could. Of course not everything, not Lucrecia, but the part about being used and abused and feeling like you want to die but still find yourself alive and willing somehow to live. That she could understand because she had lived all that on her own skin.

And he was both tempted and terrified by the possibility to share the burden without having to explain why you carry it or why you can't move on.

Yes, she was his perfect companion.

But he didn't want any companion at all.

During that week, Vincent had kept himself occupied working on his touching problems. After much consideration, he had decided to try to experiment – oh, how he hated that word! – his reactions by touching someone less compromising. His hypothesis was that there was nothing uncommon about his reaction when touching her. It didn't depend on some strange connection between the two of them, it was just the consequence of his avoiding any physical contact for years and years. Human bodies are made to be touched, and he had denied himself that satisfaction for longer than anyone could endure. It was probably a simple physical response to a stimulus. Nothing emotional or linked to him or her in particular.

So, one day, he had walked into the room where Cid was and had asked him the strangest question his mouth had ever pronounced.

-I'm sorry if this sounds weird but... Can I touch your face with my hand?-

Cid had looked amused and had smiled.

-Help yourself- he had answered, leaning forward as if he was offering himself to his friend.

Vincent had taken a deep breath and had moved slowly his right hand to touch Cid's cheek.

It was very different from the girl's one. Cid had a spiky blond beard and his skin was rougher and a little dry because he always worked outside and took too much sun without any protection.

He had felt nothing strange about it. No shiver going through his body, no electricity in his own skin. It had been like touching an object except that particular item had eyes that followed his expressions and a mouth that tried not to laugh too much at the situation.

-So?- Cid had asked, still trying not to laugh openly in his friend's face.

Vincent had frowned removing his hand from him.

-I was just curious about it- he had answered, lying a bit.

-And now? What's next? Maybe a kiss?- the inventor had teased him.

Vincent had wondered if Cid knew what he was talking about or was simply joking. Had he seen through his little experiment? Was he suggesting that the next step in his relationship with the girl would be a kiss? And why would that suggestion make any sense to the inventor?

-That's never going to happen.- he had said, harshly.

Cid had smiled without adding a single word. Vincent had decided to never think about kissing someone ever again and to leave the room very quickly.

At the end of the week, Vincent was starting to think that the girl would never go away. Of course, if Tifa and Cloud were happy, he was surely not going to object to that. But what about him? Was he supposed to stay forever in that room with her? She was still not talking to anyone but him, so at that moment it was impossible for him to leave her alone for more than a few hours. Should he talk to her about that possibility? Should he ask why she refused to interact with the others?

He was wondering this kind of questions when he walked into the bedroom. It was after a very cheerful dinner which Vincent had almost enjoyed. He was starting to appreciate the presence of his friends, even if they didn't seem to be as worried as him about the current situation.

The window was opened and the girl was leaning on the sill breathing the fresh air of the evening. When she heard Vincent's steps, she turned around to greet him with a smile.

At some point during the last week she had started to smile to him as a greeting when he entered the room. Vincent had been worried at the beginning, but she had showed no expectations for him to smile in return, and so they had settled on a new routine: when she smiled, he nodded.

That night, he bowed his head as usual and took place on his own bed. She stood by the window looking at him. She seemed a little nervous.

-May I ask you a favor?- she said.

Vincent frowned a little.

-I guess it depends on the favor- he answered, very calmly but not as politely as he wished to sound.

She looked like she hadn't noticed any sign of hostility.

-I need to get rid of my hair- she said -But I'm not sure I can do it alone. Will you help me?-

He almost laughed. Did he look like a hairdresser? He thought about his own hair, which were a strange mess of dark locks. He didn't even bother to comb it. Surely he knew nothing about cutting hair properly and probably everyone in the world could do a better job than him.

-I'm sure I'm not the right man for this job- he answered.

-I'm not asking for a makeover, I simply want to cut it of. All of it.-

-All of your hair?- Vincent asked.

Vincent didn't care very much for his own hair, but shaving the whole head looked like a very extreme gesture even for him. Like clothes, hair are part of one's self expression, and cutting it all of looked to him like a very dramatic change.

Instead of answering his question, the girl sat on _his_ bed beside him. Vincent moved almost imperceptibly in the other direction, to put some distance between his body and hers. Just to be sure to avoid any accidental touching.

-I don't know how to explain it to you but… I have very bad memories tied to my hair, things I don't want to think about ever again. I feel like cutting it off would make those memories go away. Of course I know it's not so easy to forget bad things, but… I guess I need to try.-

Vincent felt stupid. He could perfectly understand that feeling and he knew it was a good one: she was still trying to take back control over her life, to find a strategy to survive. It was good and it was the most human thing to do. He had given up a long time before, but she was not going to. She was stronger and she was fighting to live on.

You don't have her anymore, he thought, she is free.

-I want to help you, but I don't know how.- he answered.

The girl smiled and touched his right arm with affection. He noticed that, luckily, no shivers followed that contact.

-Thank you- she said, closing her eyes.

This time Vincent did shiver, but not because she had touched him. For an instant he had seen something strange, something different. The way she had smiled made him think of another smiling face, one which he hadn't seen in decades and probably could never see again. She was so different from her – her hair, her nose, the curve of her lips – and still something in her had instantly reminded him of the woman whose smile he had longed to see more than anything in the world.

The girl opened her eyes as he swallowed his confusion and many bittersweet memories. She was not Lucrecia and would never be, but she was there and he could help her. It was not the time to dwell in his past, someone needed his help to build a new future.

-Could you please ask Tifa if she has one of those electric machines to cut hair and beard?- she asked.

Vincent nodded. He most certainty could do that.

Tifa was like a fairy godmother: she always had what anyone needed. That time was no exception. She was delighted to be helpful and gave Vincent the machine straight away. She also didn't ask why he needed that, while some of the others looked very concerned about his strange request. Cid actually asked if he was going to shave his own head and Yuffie expressed her disappointment about the possibility of a shaved Vincent.

Dodging their comments with his usual strategy - pretending to be deaf - he eventually went back to his bedroom and found the girl looking quite ready for action. They agreed the whole operation should take place in the bathroom, and when they got there and settled Vincent looked carefully while the girl shaved the front part of her head. She did it very cautiously while looking at herself in a mirror. They were in the same bathroom where he had put her in the tub her the first night there. While she worked locks of hair fell to the ground like leaves on a windy autumn day. Vincent wondered how she was feeling and waited silently for his moment to perform his part of the task.

When only the back part of her head was left to shave, the girl turned to look at him.

-I can't go on by myself- she admitted, handling him the still buzzing shaving machine.

Vincent stood up from where he was seated and got nearer to her, taking the object in his hands with a bit of anxiety. She looked very determined and it was already too late to change her mind, but still he felt burdened with a huge responsibility. Furthermore, now that he had the machine in his hands, she looked uncertain. Vincent guessed that maybe she was having second thoughts not about the hair shaving, but about having him do that to her.

-I won't hurt you- he promised trying to make her feel safer.

She smiled in the mirror looking at him with trusty eyes while her shoulders visibly relaxed.

-Oh, I know you'd never hurt me.- she answered, closing her eyes and leaning into his touch.

Vincent took as much time as he could to do a fine job. He slowly ran the machine on the girl's skin, checking that every hair would be cut off and the small portions left on her head would be even. She stood very still and didn't say a word. The buzzing of the machine filled the room with his regular sound providing an excellent excuse to avoid talking. He almost felt relaxed, as always when he had to concentrate in a very practical task.

The girl's head was perfectly round, almost like a doll's one. Her ears were quite small and felt soft to Vincent's touch when he bent it carefully to shave the hair behind it. She breathe slowly and regularly, almost like someone asleep. Sometimes he had to touch her head's skin to check if he had done a good job and she got goosebumps. He, on the contrary, had no particular problem in touching her, which was puzzling considering how intimate is it to touch someone's head, and continued his task without being distracted.

When he finally turned off the machine, Vincent took a step back to look at his work form a larger perspective. She had set the machine to leave only one centimeter of hair on her head and, at the end, she looked almost like a boy. The floor was full of dark hair that looked gruesomely dead.

She inspected herself in the mirror with attention. Her gaze wandered all over her head and eventually fixed on Vincent's reflection. Her eyes were teary, but she would not give up and cry.

He thought that with this new look she appeared even smaller and weaker, like someone who is not recovering very well from a long illness. He felt almost tempted to take her in his arms once again, because she was so thin and tiny that he was afraid to see her faint.

But she persisted in her gazing and her eyes were burning with life. It appeared that she was embracing her transformation and, despite her unhealthy look, she was breathing in a new energy.

-Thank you- she whispered, as if speaking too loudly would scatter the power of the moment.

You don't have her anymore, Vincent thought again. He imagined Hojo, somewhere, thinking about the girl and how to take her back to his laboratory. You won't have her, he promised, I'm not letting you.

She turned away from the mirror to face him. Now she had wet stripes on her cheeks because the tears had finally escaped her eyes. But that burning power was still trembling in there.

While taking the cutting machine from his hands, she indulged for a few seconds into the touch of their fingers. He suddenly felt that shiver again, even more strongly than the first time if possible. He wished she had not touched him at all and, at the same time, that their fingers would never part. Her eyes were fixed into his own and Vincent felt like she could read the most secret things he had hidden into his heart. That scared him and also promised an immense relief. It also seemed that her eyes vowed that her faith in him was complete and unchangeable, as if her look silently confessed that she knew everything he had been through and promised that he could speak to her about his past without being misunderstood or pitied. He felt so tempted to say the words he had never said, to talk about Lucrecia and how his young heart had not been ready for such a passion and the torment that had followed.

How could a girl with no name give to him all that with just her look and a brief touch of fingers? Vincent felt both compelled to discover that secret and scared to find out the truth. How could he still have hope after all those years? What if he was imagining things and it was all in his own mind? What if nothing of that promised peace was there?

Then she stepped back, their fingers parted and Vincent felt like the spell was broken. He forced himself to smile to make the silly expression he surely was doing go away. She smiled back and put the cutting machine on a shelf nearby.

When she turned back to him, the girl took both his hands between hers. Vincent felt the instinct to pull back his arms but resisted the temptation just to see what would happen next. She smiled and leaned forward. After taking a deep breath, she laid one slow kiss on each of his hand.

-Thank you- she whispered again -You don't know what you have done to me.-

In his astonishment, Vincent heard Cid's voice ask his questions again.

What's next? Maybe a _kiss_?

It was persistent ringing of his cellphone that shook him out of the moment. The girl let go of his hands and took a few steps back as he answered.

-What?- he asked, his voice sounded harsh and his tone was quite impolite.

-I'm Reeve. I'm sorry to call but I need to talk to you.-

The voice on the other end of the phone call seemed worried.

Vincent frowned.

-About what?-

-The journal we found in the Shinra Mansion. I've been studying it for the past two days and things might be more… complicated than we hoped.-

-In which way?-

Reeve was usually very straightforward. Why was he so mysterious now?

-I don't think we should talk about it on the phone. Is it ok for you if I come tomorrow? I'm on my way.-

-Yes, but what…-

-Please- Reeve interrupted him -Don't tell the others about this phone call. I think it's best if we talk about it between us, before deciding what to do.-

That was undoubtedly the most strange conversation he had ever had with Reeve since they knew each other. The man felt like he was not himself. What on earth could the journal say? What had Hojo been doing in that damned laboratory?

Vincent looked at the quiet girl in front of him that was still gazing at him with admiration and gratitude. What the hell was going on?


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Vincent spent the whole night wondering what the hell was going on. He tried to sleep a few times, but he simply couldn't, his mind wouldn't let him. He trusted Reeve's sense of reality completely, so if the WRO president was so worried there was surely a good reason. But which one?

As the hours passed he felt more and more tired, but sleep never came. When finally sunshine hit the window, Vincent felt a thousand years older than the day before. And the worst was yet to come.

Reeve arrived soon after breakfast. As expected, the others were gladly surprised to see him and he was welcomed in a very friendly and noisy way. Since he was always so busy with WRO activities, they didn't get a chance to see him often, so everyone was eager to exchange a few words with him. But he looked unusually tense.

Vincent waited for his moment and Reeve made it very clear that they needed a quiet room for themselves. Tifa kindly suggested they used Cloud's office, since he was away on his deliveries.

When they entered the room, Vincent felt that the atmosphere of the place matched quite well with Reeve's tense expressione. Cloud's office was quite a simple room, mainly occupied by a wooden desk and a chair. On the desk there were few sheets of paper and a phone that the blond hero was well known to hate. Behind the desk there was a window with grey curtains and there were no other chairs beside the one Cloud was supposed to use, since his business never required customers to come see him in his "office". Vincent stood in front of the desk, while while Reeve took place in Cloud's chair, that made a chirping sound as he laid on it.

-Did she tell you anything?- Reeve asked. There was no need to be more specific about who their were talking about.

Vincent shook his head lightly.

-Only that she has been down there for quite a long time, but she doesn't know exactly how long.-

Reeve took a deep breath. He looked like he was trying to figure out the right words to say something really unpleasant. He was wearing a dark suit, which was pretty much what he wore every day, but Vincent noticed that the man continued to touch the jacket, as if he was suddenly very uncomfortable in his own clothes.

-I want to know- Vincent said.

What he actually meant was that he _needed_ to know, because of the thrill he felt touching her. Who was she? Who was the one his body seemed so reactive to?

Reeve searched for something inside his jacket and slowly pulled out a little black notebook. It looked very common and old but, at the same time, quite dangerous. Words can hurt more than gunshots and kill you in a more painful way. Vincent knew that. Reeve carefully put the notebook on Cloud's desk. His hand rested on the little black item.

-This notebook has been found in a room near the laboratory, some kind of store room full of old documents and books. There were a lot of spider webs, I don't think that room is used on a daily basis. It was not in the library, so I guess Professor Hojo didn't consider this as something important. But it could also have been misplaced.- he said.

Vincent looked at the notebook and stood still in the silence that followed those words. Reeve was clearly thinking about what to say next.

-I guess some of the information contained in these pages are about the person you rescued in the laboratory a few days ago. To be honest, I hope so, because if that's not the case, the situation in which we find ourselves is even worse.-

Silence fell again. Vincent noticed that the man in front of him was slowly moving his fingers on the notebook's cover.

-I think you should read it first, and then we can talk. If you want to.- Reeve said, eventually.

He withdrew his hand from the notebook and looked at Vincent with a very tense expression. The ex-Turk leaned forward and picked up the looked quite older now that he had it in his hands. The cover was a bit ruined in a few spots and the pages were yellowing. He opened it up and the first page had the appearance of some kind of diary. The date set the record to almost twenty years before. It was handwritten with a black pen and a chaotic calligraphy, mostly composed by long and thin letters.

 _Today's training was very promising. S. is improving faster and faster. He took down a trained soldier in 5.7 minutes. His agility is increasing._

The next page had a similar look. The date said to Vincent that this one was recorded a few days later.

 _S. got a new enhancing treatment._

 _Side effects: vomit and dizziness._

 _Training results: killed a level 4 beast in 6.1 minutes._

 _Next time I aim for a 5.0 minutes time._

Vincent rapidly read a few more pages. The contents were similar.

The subject called "S." trained with different timing results and received various doses of treatment experiencing all sorts of side effects. The person who wrote the diary looked captivated by his study and quite content with the long term results. Sometimes he added a personal statement suggesting satisfaction or surprise, but mostly it was just data. It all sounded very impersonal and boring, like most laboratory records do. Just the notes of a scientist with the sole purpose of keeping track of the experimental process.

Vincent looked at Reeve with a question in his eyes. The other one sighed.

-I think that what you are reading is a dairy that Professor Hojo held about Sephiroth's training when he was a teenage boy. If you consider the dates on that notebook, he was no more than fourteen years old when the first page was written.-

Vincent hardly resisted the urge to drop the item on the floor.

He had never spoken directly to Sephiroth and had no desire to share anything with the mad Soldier General, but reading those pages made him feel very uncomfortable. Sephiroth was the man that had almost destroyed the planet with Meteor, and he was also the man who had killed Aerith. The Avalanche's members all wore a pink ribbon somewhere on their body to remember her and her sacrifice. Vincent wore his ribbon on his right arm, the one he used to shoot, as a reminder that his guns fired only to protect the planet and its people, not to serve someone's interest like it had been when he was a Turk. But Sephiroth had also been Lucrecia's son and that diary was a proof that he had once been just a young boy whose own father had experienced on mercilessly. There were no kind words and no love for him in those pages,only the records of a scientist fascinated by his own glory. He wondered if there was a diary like that one about himself somewhere in the Mansion. He hoped not.

-What about the girl?- he asked.

He didn't know who she was, but she surely wasn't Sephiroth.

Reeve sighed.

-Please, go to the last pages and read some more.- he suggested.

Vincent did as he was told and opened the notebook to the fourth page from the end. It looked very similar to the ones he had already read, but the writing was now unusually long.

 _An adult human body cannot endure Jenova's cells. All the test subjects have died, even the one treated with MAKO. My conclusion is that the only way to achieve a successful union between a human body and Jenova's cells is to expose the body to the treatment before his birth, with the shelter of the mother's body. If I could recreate the circumstances of the only successful attempt ever made, S.'s birth, I am confident I could obtain other living hybrids who are capable of things a human, even a MAKO treated Soldier, can only imagine._

Vincent unvoluntarily bit his lower lip. The circumstances of Sephiroth's birth were awfully familiar to him. He had not witnessed the actual moment, of course, but he remember so well Lucrecia's round belly when she was pregnant and the dark circles under her beautiful eyes, as the pregnancy became more and more dangerous for her. He felt that Sephiroth had almost made his first victim even before being born.

Shaking the memories away, Vincent forced himself to continue reading.

 _I wonder what could be achieved by creating a generation of mothers with Jenova's cells inside their DNA. S. is the demonstration of the possibilities that lies in giving the treatment directly to the fetus, but both his biological parents were human. What if a mother had Jenova's cells inside her body from her own birth? How could that affect her future offspring?_

 _Humans are a vulnerable race. They suffer all kinds of illness and they are not fit to live on this planet for much longer. S. has given proof of a strength unknown to a human. He has never been ill since his birth, he's even more resistant to wounds and recovers faster after being damaged. If humans could evolve using Jenova's cell, they could survive longer and better. A new and far better race would inherit the Earth. This is the future we must work for._

-This is madness- Vincent muttered. It was too much, even for a sick man like Hojo. To merge human's DNA with an alien one and to create a new race to inherit the Earth.

-That diary has been written almost twenty years ago. Now, should we guess what Professor Hojo has been doing all this time?- asked Reeve with a very tired expression on his face.

-Do you really think he did it?- the other replied. How could something like that be done in complete silence, without anyone knowing?

-Think about it: if this experiments were to happen and to be successful, Shinra would have had the control over the future of humanity. Not only energy, but also the very lives of super-humans created by Shinra and probably controlled by Shinra. If we consider only the military aspect of this, they would have obtained an army of Sephiroths. Not just one invincible general, but hundreds of soldiers like him.- Reeve argued.

Sometimes the mind works in funny ways. Vincent's mind didn't provide him with visions of the destruction hundreds of soldiers like Sephiroth could bring to the world. Instead, he thought about the expression Cloud would make if someone said "an army of Sephiroths" in his presence. His light blue eyes would become darker with anxiety. His hand would automatically reach over his shoulder in search for his big sword. The muscle would tighten, ready to face a battle.

Vincent didn't like to admit it, but that plan was very consistent with Shinra's way of thinking. Rufus and his father before him were like that, they would never stop. At the beginning they wanted to be a big energy company but they grew tired of that very quickly and decided to be the only energy company in the planet. They wanted soldiers to protect their way of life, but then they started to use the army to attack. They used MAKO energy to produce stronger soldiers and Sephiroth, the strongest of them all, to fight the impossible battles no one else could win. They were not afraid to create monsters in their labs or to change human nature to meet their purposes. Shinra had fallen, but of course Rufus and the Turks were not all dead. And as long as the old Shinra people were alive, the Shinra would survive in their minds, in their way to see the world.

They would never give up the opportunity to be the source of a new life itself, to built and control a stronger generation of humans. A generation of Sephiroths.

-So, that girl...- Reeve said, and Vincent felt like he had almost forgotten her -I think she could be one of this "mothers" Professor Hojo mentions in this book.-

Vincent felt that was very likely to be true. Or, at least, it was an explanation of what Hojo was doing with here down in the laboratory. But what about her? Was she aware of her role in that experiment? Was she even willing to participate? Was it possible for someone to willingly let a man liko Hojo experiment with one's own body? Vincent felt painfully stupid. Yes, it was, he had witnessed that before.

-And why do you feel you needed to talk to me before giving this information to the others? What has this to do with me anyway?- he asked Reeve.

He had been the object of Hojo's experiments himself, but that did not make him responsible for all the other victims.

Reeve took a deep breath. His fingers were moving nervously on Cloud's desk.

-If I understand how science works, when you want to copy a successful experiment, you need to recreate the conditions in which the original experiment took place.-

Vincent nodded. That was surely the way.

Reeve looked at his friend very carefully while he connected the remaining dots in his own mind.

In this case, the successful experiment was Sephiroth's existence. And the conditions in which he had been created were...

This time, Vincent did drop the book on the floor. His hands were shaking. His mouth felt very dry and his heart was beating in a messy way. Standing on his own feet suddenly looked like a very challenging thing to do.

Reeve nodded slowly with a concerned look in his eyes. He knew from the beginning that this was a thing that could turn Vincent's equilibrium apart.

-This is why I wanted to talk to you before facing this subject with any other person.- he said -Maybe we can investigate some more, even. But in the laboratory there's nothing more to find, we only have that girl and…-

-She can't know anything about it.- Vincent replied very harshly.

-Well, she's been here only for a week and has not said anything yet, so...-

-I don't mean _her_.- he said, interrupting the WRO founder.

What Vincent meant was tha Lucrecia couldn't be aware of what Hojo was doing with her DNA.

-Oh- said Reeve, looking guilty -I didn't mean to…-

Silence fell. Apparently, Reeve failed to find the right words to explain what he hadn't meant to do. But Vincent didn't care. He was no more paying attention to the conversation. His mind was was remembering the cave. The humid sensation when he walked inside it, the chill of the hair despite outside the sun shone at his highest in the sky. The strange, trembling light produced by the MAKO crystal. The silence. The feeling of humbleness, the same people usually experience in the presence of something divine, like a relic or a shrine.

And _her_. The dress, as white and pure as if she was a bride on her wedding day. Her skin, forever as young as he remembered her to be the first time they had met. Her hair. Those beautiful eyes who were once so warm and kind, and now stood closed. Her lips, which he had never had the boldness to look at for more than an instant. That impossible existence where she had locked herself. The tears she had cried in front of him while asking about her child. And the gentle lie he had told her, just to keep her calm and save her from more sorrow and pain.

She couldn't know what Hojo was doing with pieces of her DNA. Vincent couldn't suspect her of being somehow partner of those experiments. She had to be unaware of everything. She had made a mistake in the bast, but she was not at all like her husband. She would have never agreed to that madness in the first place.

-Vincent?- Reeve asked.

He had a concerned look on his face. Vincent shook himself from those thoughts and regained the necessary control over his body. His heartbeat slowly returned to his normal pace.

-What do we do now?- he asked.

-I think we should run a DNA check on the girl you saved. If my suspects are wrong, we have to go back from the start. If I'm correct, then we can explain what we think is going on to the other members of Avalanche and discuss together what to do next.-

Vincent was grateful to Reeve for his rationality, especially because he felt he had lost his own. He was tormented by the memories of a young and happy Lucrecia. She had once looked like nothing in the world could go wrong. He remembered very well how that aura of optimism had cast a spell on his heart. She believed in that bright future with such strength that he had desired to share her belief and be part of that future. To be part of her life.

Vincent took a deep breath. There was no use to dwell in the past. That dream could not come back. Now he had a very specific and unpleasant task to perform: make the girl drink something and steal the glass. Reeve would then take her DNA from it and check it.

As always, she was in their bedroom. It was late afternoon on the solstice of Autumn but Vincent hadn't been aware of which time was until he entered the room to find it flooded with the golden light of September. After his encounter with Reeve in Cloud's office, he had spent the day avoiding any contact with his friends. He just wanted to be alone and to avoid talking with anyone. But Reeve needed to go back to WRO headquarters before nightfall, and so he had to eventually put their plan in action. He found the girl leaning on the windowsill as she had taken the habit to do. This time, because of the sunlight coming in, Vincent thought that the skin on her arms looked like it was made of warm gold. He felt blinded by that view and shielded his eyes with a hand.

Nothing Vincent had seen or heard that day had made him think of something else but Lucrecia and how Hojo was once again exploiting her for his mad experiments. But now he was so surprised by what he saw that he completely forgot about her for a few moments. The girl had a completely different aura than any other time he had seen her before. Her body that day seemed stronger. He knew it was impossible for her to have changed much since the day before, but something in her was not the same. The casual way one of her bare feet was caressing the floor, her elbows solidly laid on the sill, her head lazily supported by her left hand, even the way she turned her back on the door. Nothing about her made her look like a scared puppy anymore. She now seemed to him similar to a woman in a painting: solid in her pose and fixed forever, with no past and no future, just the golden light raining on her through the glass.

Vincent suddenly remembered his task and cleared his throat politely to let her know he was there. She turned to him slowly, as someone who is waking up from a languid dream. When she smiled, her eyes smiled too.

-I brought you some water- he said, feeling like she could read right through his plan.

-Thank you- she replied, walking towards him with a solid pace.

When she took the glass from his hand, she caressed his fingers for an instant. Then, she drank all the content of the glass and gave it back to him.

-Thank you- she said again -I really needed that.-

Vincent had wanted to complete his mission and run away as soon as possible but suddenly his feet seemed to be not very fond of moving. He stood there while she sat on the bed. _His bed_ , he noticed.

-What have you been doing today?- she asked, swinging her feet a few centimeters above the ground.

-Nothing in particular- he answered, thinking about his very particular meeting with Reeve.

-Has your friend from the phone come to see you?-

Vincent wondered if that question was innocent or if she had noticed how upsetting that phone call had been for him. He decided to follow her line of inquiry and see where she would lead him.

-Yes, he's still here actually.- he carefully answered.

The girl's smile turned off and she looked him very straight in his eyes. She didn't look kind or lovely anymore, he found out.

-Would you tell me what he has discovered about me?- she asked with a very serious and unusually fierce tone.

Vincent felt thrown off balance. For a moment, he had thought to see a glimpse of green in her deeply brown eyes. That may have been his imagination being very creative after a night with no sleep and a day of distress, but he was now facing a very real dilemma: he didn't want to discuss those things with her, but how could he refuse to give her information about herself? He felt that, if he were her, he would want to know everything. He was still trying to figure out how to answer the question she had asked when the girl's expression changed completely. She smiled and took her eyes away from him, going back to her usual vulnerable and kind self.

-I'm sorry- she said with a sweet voice -I was a bit blunt.-

He relaxed a bit, but now he couldn't helpt to be unsure about her. In the past days, she had always been silent and kind. Even when she had expressed a need or a desire, like the night before, she had done it in a very delicate and understanding way. Who was that person he had seen for a moment? Was that her true character?

At this point he had forgotten completely about the DNA test. He was compelled to discover who she really was, not only regarding Hojo's plan, but in a more immediate way. Who was she _to him_? What was her true self? Vincent put the empty glass on the nearest piece of furniture he found, then he sat on her bed, right in front of the girl, and wondered what he could reveal without shocking her and which information could produce that strange behaviour again.

-I didn't mean to sound so demanding- she explained -I'm very sorry.-

-Don't be- he replied instinctivly -I understand that you want to know.-

But now things were getting more and more complicated. In fact, either she genuinely didn't have a clue about Hojo's experiments, in which case she obviously wanted to discover what he had done to her; or she knew about the experiments, and she wanted to know what they had discovered about it. Vincent realized for the first time that she was indeed a stranger and that he didn't know if she was on their side or Hojo's. He felt suddenly very vulnerable for having shared his skin with her so many times without even knowing her name or her purpose. He had assumed she was a victim, just like him, but what if she was willingly participating in Hojo's plan to give birth to super humans like Sephiroth?

He was considering this possibility when he remembered the way she had desperately grabbed the cloth of his cloak when he was still sitting in his coffin. And when Hojo had found them, she had looked at Vincent in the same way people gaze at images of the gods while praying. He felt very stupid. Those were not the eyes of someone who was willingly to be experimented on and certainly not the eyes of someone who was now taking somehow advantage of him and his sympathy. Those were the eyes of a tortured soul, who would trust even a scary and unknown man in a coffin for the sake of getting away from the monster who had been holding her captive for so long.

He felt ashamed for doubting her. She was just a victim and victims should never be blamed or suspected. She was also still recovering from the trauma: sudden changes of mood were more than understandable.

-They have not discovered much- he eventually said. Of course, that was a lie, and Vincent, who was not used to lie, was quite impressed by how it had been surprisingly easy to not tell the truth.

And suddenly he remembered a huge piece of information which he had almost forgotten and that she surely deserved to know: Hojo was not dead.

He took a deep breath.

-I'm sorry to say that _his_ body has not been found.-

The girl's eyes opened widely at that words and her skin went paler and paler until he became worried she would faint. But she didn't. Instead, she gripped the covers of his bed and shut her eyes very hardly to endure the pain and the shock that information brought by. She swallowed a couple of times. Her feet were now motionless, hanging just a fraction of space above the wooden floor.

They had already talked about the possibility of Hojo being alive, but only now Vincent understood how strongly she must have hoped for his death. Knowing that there was no body was a huge strike for her. Her wounds were fresh on her skin and in her mind and knowing for sure that the monster responsible for it was still walking the earth must have been like a new torture for her.

Vincent stood up and looked her in the eyes. He felt he needed to do something.

-You won't be in his power again.- he said.

She opened her eyes, which were now made shiny by tears, and looked at him. She was on the edge of crying. Vincent thought that he was towering over her and perhaps that didn't communicate a sense of safety. So, he knelt in front of the seating girl, finding himself with one knee on the floor and the other bent in front of himself.

He had meant to be less menacing, but she must have interpreted that gesture in a different way because she stood up from the bed and threw herself into his arms. Vincent had to quickly balance the backlash of her body thrown at him putting the other knee on the floor too, but he somehow managed to avoid falling. However, the girl burst into tears and her legs lost the ability to make her stand. She fell towards the floor and he found himself keeping her in an almost standing position with his own arms.

-I'm… I'm sorry… - he tried to say, hoping that she would regain enough control over her body to stand on her own feet, but she did quite the opposite. Her body became suddenly heavier and it felt like she was melting in his arms. He focused on keeping her off the floor but she slipped away from his grasp and she ended up seated on the ground with her back against his bed.

She was violently sobbing and she hugged herself as if she wanted to protect her body from him, which made Vincent feel like she was afraid of him. It was the first time ever that she appeared to be refusing his touch, and the sensation he felt was one of rejection and inadequacy. He had failed her. She needed his understanding and his sympathy and he had offered her suspects and lies, trying to trick her to give her DNA unwillingly to him. He felt a manipulative piece of shit.

And all that had happened only because of Hojo. Vincent felt anger rising inside him as she kept crying and shaking in front of him. How many lives could have been spared if only Hojo had never existed? All those tears that had been poured because of him and his doings, all those sorrow and pain caused only by his existence. Oh, if only that bullet had killed him. Instead of crying, the girl would have been smiling at the news that the scientist's body had indeed been found in the Mansion and he would not need to worry about that man's plan anymore. Vincent imagined to exist in a world without Hojo, to not have to spend nights awake worrying about him anymore. That was surely a world worth living in.

Leaving his thoughts aside, he eventually looked at her. She starting to cry in a calmer and quieter way. He felt sympathy for her once again. Her tears were his own. He hadn't cried in a very long time, but he would happily cry with her if he could. But he couldn't, so he settled for leaning a bit towards her and petting her head slowly. She looked very surprised and also relieved by that unexpected attention.

-The next time- he whispered - I will kill him in one shot.-

She looked at him with wet hoping eyes.

-For me?- she asked.

-For us.-


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The girl's DNA was still on the glass when Vincent took it to Reeve later on that evening. They shared a determined look, but both of them were worried sick about the results and how the world would change if Reeve's suspects were proved to be true.

When Vincent came back into the room, the girl appeared to be much calmer. She was reading a book on her own bed. Since she looked very engaged in that activity, he felt more relaxed too. His look wandered through the room and stopped on the window. The sun had set over the horizon and dark clouds were rapidly gathering in the sky. It looked like a storm was coming.

How appropriate, Vincent thought. A storm was indeed on her way. Reeve had said that the DNA results would be ready in about three days, but Vincent's mind had already decided to believe in the worst case scenario: the girl was the result of Hojo's experiments to create a Jenova-powered female body to use as a mother for a generation of Sephiroths. Which meant she had probably been born with Lucrecia's cells. To think that he was sharing the room with Lucrecia's biological daughter made him feel awkward and guilty, even if he had not desired to be in that situation at all.

He forgot the window and sat on his bed, suddenly feeling an acute sense of tension. The impression of being torn between two impossible situations - being amongst people or alone with the girl - was once again strong in his body. He felt tense and stiff, like people do after staying for a long time in the same position. He bowed his head left and right to release his neck's muscles from that feeling and produced a few crack noises.

Vincent was now facing a dilemma. He was curious to look at the girl and see if any resemblance with Lucrecia could be found, but of course he didn't want to stare at her, so his eyes were wandering on anything but her face. When he was young, he had been in the same situation with Lucrecia herself. The more he desired to contemplate her beauty, the more he could not find the courage to look at her. His heart ached as the memories came vividly to his mind. That situation had brought up a lot of things he wished not to dwell in.

A sudden pop sound made very clear that the girl had closed the book. Vincent found himself looking at her as she carefully laid it on the bed and sighed.

-I'm sorry for my behavior.- she said, looking down with shame -You must be really tired of taking care of me and I still can't do anything but cry and hide in this room.-

Vincent felt guilty for wanting the situation to end. For once, he was not the one who was feeling the worst but he seemed to find that quite difficult to remember. Who cared about his difficulty with sharing the room? How was _she_ feeling about it? She surely wasn't happy about her life. He could have shown a little more empathy and comprehension, instead of thinking about Lucrecia and her marvellous smile.

-Don't apologize- he replied, trying to sound warm and welcoming -I think I understand how you must feel right now.-.

She looked at him with adoring eyes and Vincent felt his stomach twist. He was absolutely not used to receive looks like that one. Cid always teased him saying that Yuffie had a huge crush on him, but he doubted that very much. The ninja liked to scold him a lot and never actually treated him like an object of love or admiration. On the contrary, he felt that her behavior towards him was quite the same she had while dealing with Cloud or Cid himself.

But this particular girl was undoubtedly very different from any other woman he knew, and he was unsure of how to deal with her.

-Can I ask you something?- she said, turning him away from his considerations about Yuffie. He nodded.

-Why were you in that coffin? Who put you in there?-

Vincent was waiting for that question to rise again, and when it did he felt less uncomfortable than he had expected. She had seen the room and the coffin, it was only a matter of time before she asked something like that again. The first time he had felt the urge to avoid all that questioning to keep away from the parts of his life he didn't want to share, but this time he felt more incline to answer at least some of the questions. Talking about Lucrecia was still impossible for him, but he could vaguely explaine why he was in that coffin without necessarily mentioning her or his love for her. He had the suspect that, after his own reaction a few days before, the girl knew better than to ask about the woman he loved again.

-I put myself in there to atone for my sins.- he answered.

The girl looked very confused and Vincent surely couldn't blame her. His answer was quite confusing. Furthermore, she had been a prisoner of the Mansion, she must have found impossible for someone to willingly close himself up in the same dungeon that she had tried so hard to escape from. His situation had never been fully understood by the Avalanche members either, but they were always very careful to avoid any comment or question on the matter. Vincent himself hadn't actually figured it out clearly. He just felt like he needed to shut himself from the world and that place had always had power on him. In the end, he had been a prisoner too, and it seemed like he had never stopped.

-And how do you know… _him_?- she asked again, trembling lightly as the pronoun which stood for Hojo's name escaped from her lips.

That was a very comprehensible question too. He knew that Hojo had talked about him with the girl, and he had shown fury and rage towards the man. They obviously knew each other.

-A long time ago, I worked for Shinra. They gave me the mission to protect and spy on… that man's experiments.- he answered, choosing his words carefully. He was almost surprised by how easy was for him to explaine the whole situation without mentioning Lucrecia.

The girls frowned and wet her lips. Vincent noticed she kept scratching the inner side of her left arm, where he knew she had been plugged to the feeding drip. She looked nervous.

-I don't understand…- she muttered.

-I'm sorry- this time was Vincent's turn to ask for forgiveness -But I can't talk about that.-

-But you said it was a long time ago. How is that possible? Who are Tifa and the others and how do you know them if you were down there all the time?-

Vincent felt almost compelled to smile. Of course, he did not, but he was somehow amused by the questions that were raining down on hm. She had been so silent and closed in herself for the whole time they had been together. Now she was starting to care for the outside too. And her outside, at the moment, was Vincent. Also, his friends were always very careful not to say something that could trigger unpleasant memories in him. Vincent felt grateful for that, but it was somehow refreshing to talk to someone who didn't experience a conversation with him to be like a minefield. Her innocence in asking the questions the others would never dare to ask made it almost easier to produce an answer.

-Cloud and the others found me years ago right where you found me too. They were on a very difficult quest and I offered my help. Have you ever heard about…- he hesitated -About someone called Sephiroth?-

She went stiff like a scared cat. It very much looked like she had.

-They were trying to stop him. They did, actually. Well, we did.- he admitted. Thinking about his role in Sephiroth's downfall had always made him feel strange. He had been Lucrecia's son, and now he was talking to what he believed was Lucrecia's daughter. It looked like his strange life kept getting stranger and stranger.

Meanwhile, the girl seemed very upset about Sephiroth being mentioned. Could that be a clue? Could that mean that she knew something about her relationship with the ex Soldier?

-What do you know about Sephiroth?- Vincent asked.

Now it was his moment to be curious.

-I know he… he was strong and... he… he is the reason I was created.- she muttered, looking back at the floor like everything Sephiroth had been and done was somehow her fault.

Vincent was astonished. She knew! She knew about Hojo's plan, about the experiments and about being the mother of superhuman babies who would conquer the Earth! How long had she been aware of all that? Why hadn't she spoken before?

-So you do know what he was doing to you.- he said, without even thinking about it. He was almost mad at her. Why did she choose not to tell him anything? Every information could be crucial in saving millions of lives! If Hojo were to bring Sephiroth back, they had to know and stop him. The world was slowly healing from the last time Sephiroth had been there, another calamity would definitely end all hopes.

The girl looked him in the eyes with the saddest and most determined expression he had ever seen on another human being.

-I know I'm a laboratory rat and the purpose of my existence is to produce babies that will be like him.- she said, shaking like leaves do in the freezing winter wind.

Her words were like slaps. Vincent felt stupid and wrong.

How could he say things like that to her? How could he think of her that way? Had he been a volunteer in Hojo's experiments? Then why should she? And, even if she had, he knew another woman who had taken part in those experiments. Would he talk like that to _her_? Of course he wouldn't, because he understood how people can be fragile and innocent and wrong. Mistakes are made, Vincent of all people should remember very carefully that truth.

He had just received a very clear demonstration of the reason why his friends avoided questioning him about his past. It really was a minefield and it was almost impossible to do that without hurting the other person. He felt he should have known that already, but having suffered a trauma does not mean that you know how to deal with others who have been through the same. He lowered his eyes feeling guilty and ashamed.

-I'm sorry, I should know better than say things like that.- he muttered.

Luckily, she smiled at him. It seemed he had been forgiven.

-I don't know how to deal with myself either- she replied -I'm afraid I'm going to be stuck here forever.-

Vincent looked up and met her eyes. They were watery but she was not giving up to tears. Her arms were shaking a little be she seemed quite calmer now.

-Would you like to go somewhere else?- he asked.

To that, she smiled very spontaneously.

-What I meant is that I don't know if I can go on and have a different life than the one I had before we met.- she explained.

Vincent though that describing their first encounter as the moment "they met" made it look so splendidly normal, as if no dungeons, no coffins, no running away from Hojo were involved at all. Just meeting, like normal people do all the time, sharing each other's names and smiling politely to the new acquaintance. But of course things had gone very differently and she had not shared her name with him. He didn't know why, but that was still an issue he found particularly unsettling.

-How did you manage to get you life back together?- she asked.

That was quite an easy question.

-I didn't.- he answered.

It was awfully true. Even if he was not physically lying in the coffin at the moment, his spirit was very much trapped in that place. He had not moved forward, he had just gotten older and more bitter. In all those years his mind had been exploring the same few memories over and over again, feeling everytime less happiness and more despair. Lucrecia's radiant face had once been a source of joy and warmth, but now it reminded him only of what could have been and was lost forever. To be honest, lately he had tried less and less to think of her, because it made him feel miserable and hopeless.

-You are still alive- the girl said, turning is mind away from those memories -There's still time to move on.-

Was that even remotely true? Vincent wasn't at all optimistic about changing his life. He felt old and too much accustomed to his habits to be able to change now. But she was young and clearly not as resigned as him. She could move on, hopefully.

Vincent stood silent. He actually didn't know what to add to that conversation. He felt melancholic and tired of that day's emotions. He was still convinced that she was Lucrecia's daughter and the DNA test would prove him right, but speaking to her had made quite a difference in how he approached the whole situation. Even if she had been made to breed little Sephiroths that Shinra would someday use to conquer the world, right now she looked very focused on changing that destiny and he appreciated that attitude. Maybe she could succeed in what he had so blatantly failed in. He looked at her face and saw a new determination. She was going to fight for herself, he could easily tell that Hojo was not going to win her over easily. He felt empowered by that thought. A few days before, Tifa had suggested that the girl could understand him better than any of them could. Vincent was sceptical about that, but feeling that she was somehow fighting a very similar battle than his own gave him a sense of strength and courage.

Bring it on, he thought, we will never let you win.

Vincent was not aware of his current facial expression, but the girl seemed to find it quite pleasing because she smiled caressing the cloth of her bed's blanket.

-Lately I've been thinking about overcoming my fears. I know I can't simply forget what I've been through and start a new life, but maybe I can begin with something not too difficult. Leaving this room, for instance, seems a good first step. Do you think perhaps I could have dinner downstairs with you and the others?- she asked.

Vincent forgot to hide his surprise and nodded very quickly. That was the moment he had been waiting for since their first day there and now it had come very unexpected.

-I think the others will be happy to get to know you. I'll go and tell them you are dining with us.- he said, getting up from the bed.

She smiled again.

-I want to know them too.-

As Vincent had said, the Avalanche members were very excited about finally meeting the girl properly. As to how they expressed that feeling, each one had a different way. Yuffie looked especially nervous and upset about the whole situation and Vincent wondered why, since the ninja had been complaining about the girl "not bothering to leave the room and meet them" for quite a few days. As comment do this, Cid frowned at him in what looked like a very significant way, but Vincent failed to understand the subtext. Tifa and Cloud were clearly worried to make everything perfect for their guest, while Barret and Cid maintained the coolest attitude towards this development of the situation.

Cid helped Vincent in laying the table and, when the ex Turk asked his friend how he felt about the girl's presence, Cid simply said: -If we can deal with you, she won't be a problem!-

-How exactly do you _deal with me_?- Vincent asked frowning uncontrollably.

Was there a list of "things not to do in front of Vincent" that his friends secretly followed when he was with them?

Cid laughed his heart out until he almost dropped the dishes he was laying on the table.

-If you think I'm gonna tell you, you must think again, Vin!- he answered, disappearing into the kitchen.

Vincent remained alone in the living room wondering if he should be worried or flattered.

When dinner was finally ready, the girl walked down the stairs slowly but steadily. Tifa, who had taken care of making all her friends look very busy with different activities to avoid her the feeling of entering a room full of people looking at her, greeted the guest with a warm smile.

-We are so happy to see you!- she said, gesturing towards the table to invite her to take a seat.

The girl smiled back and took place near Vincent, who had found nothing better to do than sip a glass of wine and look at his empty dish. With impressive timing, Cloud appeared from the kitchen with a big bowl full of rice in his hands and all the Avalanche members took places at the table, chattering about being hungry and all the usual things people say when they are about to eat together. Vincent noted that his friends looked more cheerful than usual, as if they were trying to make the girl feel welcomed surrounding her with a happy atmosphere. Looking at Cid he wondered if they did that all the time he was with them. Had he been so blind as to not notice that before? Was that a way to "deal with" him or a new rule made just for her?

Marlene and Denzel were not home that evening, which Vincent thought was perfect to guarantee his guest a relatively calm first experience with the group. The children were good, but they were children, and that can be difficult for someone who is just starting to interact with people after a long troublesome time alone with an abusive madman and some days with an awkward roommate. Barret asked Tifa who was the friend whose house the children were having dinner at and this led to a conversation about how much the two of them were growing fast and the sharing of some memories of good and not so good times involving the both of them. Tifa mentioned that it seemed to her only yesterday that Cloud had found Denzel wandering around in the ruins of Sector 5 and Vincent wondered what would happen if the boy had run into him instead of the blond hero who now looked very fond of his young flatmate. Maybe he would have scared the kid away. He certainly didn't possess Cloud's lovely face.

-So- the girl said quite calmly -I'm not the first one to be saved and take shelter in your house.-

There was an awkward moment of involuntary silence while everyone absorbed the surprise of hearing her talk, then Cid laughed and the tension disappeared.

-Yeah, we're all stray cats!- he said, patting Barret's back with friendly violence -Tifa has practically adopted all of us to save our asses.-

-Ehi! Speak for yourself!- Yuffie replied, pretending to be offended as was so usual for her.

-That's certainly true for me, Cid- said Cloud, smiling warmly to his childhood friend.

-I may have adopted you, but don't even consider calling me "mother"!- Tifa joked.

-That gives me chills.- replied Cloud, pretending to shiver. Of course, he was thinking about Kadaj and his "brothers".

-I think we all had enough of people searching for their "mother"- said Barret before taking a long sip of dark beer.

The Avalanche people laughed and Vincent looked at the girl near him. She seemed a little confuse but certainly happy, and she was eating too. It was impossible to detect if she had understood the reference to Sephiroth and Jenova. She was smiling and following the conversation with vivid eyes. Vincent thought that if that was the way they "dealt with her", it looked like it was working quite well.

That night, Vincent had a very unusual dream.

He was at a party in someone's flat. In the dream he knew that it was Cid's place, even if it had nothing to do with what Cid's house actually looked like. He wandered around the few rooms of the flat exploring the place. There were a lot of people chatting and listening to music, and everyone seemed quite happy to be there. The Avalanche members were scattered among all those strangers and looked very busy with social interactions. He spotted Tifa laughing with a few guys and Yuffie enjoying some popcorn with other random people.

Walking from a room to the next, Vincent found himself in front of a big mirror. He was a little surprised to see a very young and casual looking version of himself: his hair was short like it had been when he had worked in the Turks and, instead of his cloak outfit, he was wearing a dark sweater that looked (and felt) very comfortable. His reflection looked at ease, and he actually felt uncommonly calm and serene. The background music was not too loud nor distasteful. He was quite content.

Turning away from the mirror, he saw Cid taking with someone an the other end of the room. Without even thinking about it, the young Vincent in the dream decided to join his friend. So, he walked in Cid's direction dodging the guests that were dancing or talking in the middle of the room. Some people even said "hello" to him and he replied with zero effort, even if he couldn't match those faces with names. People were simply having a good time, and for once he was too. He just went with the flow. While walking, he saw Cloud with the corner of his eye. The hero was chatting with a tall man with long silver hair that looked very familiar. Vincent had a vague sense that the situation between the two of them was supposed to be odd, but Cloud seemed perfectly happy and not at all in danger and he, after all, was going to mind his own business and not going to pay any attention to that. He just wanted to go talk to Cid and honestly it seemed that nothing could shatter the peaceful atmosphere of the party, not even Sephiroth's presence. Also, if Cloud was fine with it, who was he to question it?

When he finally reached Cid, the inventor smiled and greeted him with his usual cheerfulness.

-Oh, I'm glad you made it to the party, Vin!- he said -What's a party without you?-

Cid's sarcasm was not uncommon and Vincent was not even tempted to feel offended. He was not a party animal, but that night he was so positive about the whole situation that nothing could hurt him. He felt himself smile.

-Yeah, how could you ever manage to have fun without me?- he replied, with his own surprise.

Wow, he thought, I'm really good at this. Real life Vincent would have never said those words, not even under some kind of torture, but dream Vincent was absolutely chill and had no doubt about how to interact with friends and strangers. He seemed to have unexpectedly refined social skills.

-Well, Vin, let me introduce you to my friend.- Cid said, gesturing in the direction of the person he had been talking about before Vincent's arrival.

Vincent looked at the person to find out it was a girl. But not just any girl, _the girl_ , the one in his room. The young Vincent in the dream somehow had a notion that the older reality Vincent was sleeping in a room in Cloud's and Tifa's house with a strange girl. And she was the girl at Cid's party. She looked quite different, but he recognized her in an instant. Her head was shaved and her lashes were long and curved in a very dramatic way. She was wearing a stunning red dress that looked like it was made of wool. She smiled at him very warmly and Vincent moved forward to shake her hand.

-Nice to meet you, I'm Vincent Valentine- he said, while their fingers started touching.

The girl smile grew and her eyes laughed too.

-I'm very happy to finally meet you. I am _Victoria-_ she replied.

Vincent woke up suddenly and completely. It was still night and the room was pitch black. The memory of his dream was still so vivid in his mind that, for a few seconds, he almost thought that he had not been dreaming at all. But of course it couldn't be a real memory. When he was young, some of his friends weren't even born yet, and Cid must have been just a baby. Also, he could have never been so happy and at ease at a party in his life. Even before meeting Lucrecia and Hojo, Vincent had always been quite a timid and awkward young man. And the girl…

He turned in his own bed to face her, even if the darkness of the room made it impossible for him to actually see her. He heard her breathing deeply as people do when they sleep soundly.

Victoria, she had said. "I am _Victoria_ "


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The sun shone brightly on Vincent's closed eyelids. He was still half asleep but bits of his consciousness were starting to light up again. He smelled coffee and felt a little cold on his left foot. He could detect the typical tingling sensation produced by locks of his hair laying on his forehead. He knew it was time to wake up, but he didn't want to. Not yet.

He had had an uncommonly satisfying night on deep sleep. He had woken up only once, after the dream about Victoria, and then he had fallen back asleep quite easily and nothing had bothered his rest until that moment. It was not very common for him to sleep soundly and peacefully like that. In fact, who knew when it would happen again?

So, he was reluctant to fully wake up. He knew he eventually had to, but not just yet. He wanted to linger some more in the relaxed atmosphere left by that night of good sleep.

His body felt heavy and very much made of solid matter. He had the feeling that every gesture, even one as simple as moving a finger, would cost him a lot of energy, so he laid perfectly still. The blankets made him feel cozy and surrounded by warmth. Only his left foot was somehow cold, having probably escaped out of the blankets. It was a bit uncomfortable, but not so much as to force him to do something about it. He knew that every movement would brake that fragile balance and wake him up definitely and was determined to procrastinate that moment as long as he could.

The morning noises from downstairs were muffled and mostly indistinguishable. He could imagine the other having breakfast but it was impossible to separate one single sound from the other and match it with what produced it. It all felt just like a background music made of voices, dishes and cups being put together and, sometimes, steps.

Actually, as soon as his mind thought about steps, he had the impression that some of them were getting a bit louder, which of course meant closer to him. Someone was going up the stairs. Vincent couldn't recognize the particular pace of those steps and that made him wonder if he had been away too long in the coffin. As a sniper, being able to recognize people he knew by the sound they made while walking was a pretty important skill. In the right situation, it could make the difference between shooting a friend or a foe.

There was another noise and he was forced to abandon his brooding about killing his friends for error. His room's door had been opened and closed again, he didn't need his sight to be sure of that. For a moment the sounds from downstairs had been louder, but then it had all gone back to muffled and undetermined background noise.

Had someone come to check if he was still there? Were they afraid he would leave in the night to go back to the Mansion without even saying goodbye? Would he ever do something that?

Would I?, Vincent asked himself. He was not quite sure about that. The right answer would be "no, I never would" but he felt often very tempted to just disappear from everyone's sight. And goodbyes were not his favorite things to go through.

At this point, his mind was almost fully awake, even if his eyes were still shut and his body had not moved an inch since his first glimpse of consciousness. He was still waiting for something to force him to wake up. And that something came in the gentle form of a sound.

-Vincent?- a soft voice whispered in his left ear -Are you awake?-

-Yes- he answered in his sleepy voice, which was deeper and rougher than the usual one.

He still didn't want to give in and open his eyes. His body was still surrounded by that sensation of peace and relaxation that would certainly go away in an instant if he had surrendered to the daylight.

-Are you ok?- asked the voice, still whispering.

Vincent wondered who was the person beside him. The voice sounded like a female one, so all the men in the house were taken away from the pool of possible solutions to the enigma. He was inclined to exclude Yuffie or Marlene, because they were usually quite loud. Maybe Tifa? Or…?

He opened up his eyes as fast as he could but found something very strange: he could not see, because someone had quickly placed a hand on his face which covered his eyes completely.

-Wait!- the voice said, still half whispering -You'll blind yourself!-

That looked like a very strange thing to say, but then Vincent remembered the warmth of the sunlight shining on his eyelids. Actually, the voice was right. If she hadn't covered his eyes, he would have hurt himself pretty badly.

-Let me close the curtains- she said, lightly and slowly removing her fingers from his face.

Vincent obediently shut his eyes again. He heard steps and the sound made by the curtain being pulled across the window.

-You're ok now- said the voice, coming back towards him.

He finally gave up and opened his eyes on the new day. What he saw was Victoria, standing near his bed, seated on her heels. She looked… happy. She had some crumbles of bread on the corners of her mouth and she was smiling with her whole face, which created small bends of skin at the corner of her big eyes.

-Goodmorning- she said while her smile seemed to become even wider.

-'Morning- murmured Vincent, trying his best to hold a yawn.

-Are you planning on getting up eventually? Tifa says you need to hurry if you want to have breakfast with everyone.-

Why would I desire to have such a noisy and chaotic breakfast?, Vincent wondered. But Victoria's smiling face suggested a much wiser question: why would he want to miss a single meal now that she was eating with everyone?

-I can see you already ate something- he suggested, conquering an almost seated position and finally taking back his cold left foot from out of the blankets. He run a hand over his face to take the locks of hair on his forehead fall away.

Victoria made a puzzled expression and touched her face as a reflex. When she found the crumbles, her cheeks got redder and she lowered her eyes with shame.

This gave Vincent the opportunity to look at her without being looked back.

He thought about the name _Victoria_. It was statistically almost impossible that he had dreamt her actual name. He was most certainly not a fortune-teller, if such things even existed. The whole dream and the name had only been some strange product of his own mind and must have nothing to do with who she was in the real world. He knew that without any doubt. However, it often happens that a vivid dream can feel real, even if we know it is not. That night Vincent had dreamt that a girl who was refusing to tell him her name presented herself as "Victoria". If that had happened with Tifa or any other people who had names known to him, he would have just forgotten the whole situation quite easily. But she was nameless. "I am Victoria" she had said in her dream. And Vincent couldn't stop thinking about her that way.

For him, she _was_ Victoria.

-Well- she said, finally lifting her gaze back onto his face -Are you coming down for breakfast?-

Vincent nodded.

-Go ahead, I'll come down in a few minutes.-

She smiled again and in no time she was at the door. She turned back to look at him and made a funny laughing noise.

-Thank you, Vincent.- she said just before disappearing outside the room.

Wondering why she was thanking him, he noticed that, despite having told her his name right away, she had never called him "Vincent" since that morning.

While washing his face, Vincent automatically began to visit the same thoughts about Victoria his mind had been chewing the day before. Could she really be Lucrecia and Hojo's daughter? She didn't look like them, but that was not necessarily a proof of anything, for Sephiroth had not resembled his parents either. Vincent had had the impression of seeing Lucrecia's smile in hers a few days before, but he had no way of being sure it had not only been his own imagination. He had indulged so much in his memories of Doctor Crescent that he wouldn't be surprised to have hallucinations about her. And what if she wasn't their daughter? The fact that the purpose of her existence was to be the Jenova-enhanced incubator for Sephiroth-like babies was not a definitive proof of who her parents were. If she was not Hojo's biological daughter, how and when had she been captured by the scientists? And were her real parents still alive? Did she have a family somewhere, even if she wasn't aware of that?

Vincent dried his face with a towel. It felt nice against his skin and somehow it reminded him of Victoria's hand over his eyes, just a few minutes before. Remembering the intimacy and the spontaneity of that gesture made him slightly blush. He had not felt any thrill when she had done it, but thinking about it now made his stomach twist in a strange way. It was pointless to deny it, in just a few days Victoria had forced herself into his life quite successfully. Despite all his efforts, it was rapidly getting harder and harder to consider her just a stranger who would simply leave the house and disappear leaving nothing behind. To be honest, Vincent felt a little anxious about the possibility that she would eventually go away and never come back. Now that she had a name, even a fake one, it was impossible to pretend that she was nothing to him. He had promised her to kill Hojo, not just for himself but for the both of them. It had been a promise made instinctively, but thinking about it afterwards had proven the spontaneous nature of the gesture to be significant: Vincent rarely acted on pure instinct beside in fightin situations, but she was somehow capable of inspiring him such actions. And that was because she really gave him a sense of courage and hope, she made him feel that if she could trust in her future, he could too. Hope was a dangerous feeling, and Vincent was quite afraid of giving in to that.

He considered his own reflection in the mirror searching on his face for clues of what was happening inside his mind. He looked like the usual Vincent, but he felt a bit different. He noticed that the dark circles he usually had under his eyes were visibly lighter. That could not be Victoria's doing, it must have been just a consequence of him finally having a good night of sound sleep. Looking into his own eyes, Vincent remembered his younger self he had dreamed of. He had every part of the dream quite vividly impressed in his mind, even insignificant details like the cloth of Victoria's bright red dress. He shook his head, trying to forget the whole thing: it was pointless to dwell in that strange product of his imagination.

Looking back to his actual physical appearance as reflected by the mirror, Vincent thought that his forehead seemed quite naked without the red bandage he usually wrapped around his head. Since he was in the process of getting dressed, his torso was naked too, and his eyes' attention drifted to the scar Hojo had left on him when he had shot his shoulder, more than thirty years before. It didn't stand out so much, but Vincent couldn't avoid looking at it, since it was the only visible mark of all his sorrows. He wondered which and how many of Victoria's scars would endure through the years and become part of her. He hoped none.

-Ohi! Vin!- Cid's voice shouted from outside the bathroom.

Vincent shook himself from his contemplative state and reached swiftly for his clothes.

-What?- he answered, his voice revealing more startle than he would have wanted to show.

-Are you coming down or not? Breakfast is almost over!- replied the inventor banging on the door.

Vincent opened it and looked at his friend with an annoyed face.

-I just woke up, am I allowed to wash?- he asked.

-Oh, I didn't realize you were still _desabillè-_ Cid commentend with a smirk.

The inventor laughed warmly and took a bite from a biscuit he had in his right hand.

-I'm sure _someone_ would prefer to have you at the table like this, but dress up and come down already. We won't wait for you all morning!-

After pronouncing this puzzling sentence, Cid disappeared down the stairs, leaving Vincent to wonder who could possibly enjoy the view of him in his underwear.

After breakfast, Cloud swiftly collected a few packages he had left in his office the day before and left the house on his big motorcycle to run his daily business of deliveries around the city. As the blonde hero left the house, Vincent noticed that someone was looking quite intensity at the door his friend had just closed behind himself. That someone was Victoria, who gazed at the door with wanting eyes. Vincent was starting to think she was developing an interest for Cloud when Cid hit him on the back with a friendly slap and asked:

-Who wants to go for a walk? I must buy some stuff for a project of mine.-

Victoria looked at the inventor with an unsure expression and Vincent frowned in Cid's direction.

-One day or another I will do the same to you, but with my armor glove on.- he hissed.

Cid didn't look worried by that threatening suggestion and laughed in response while putting a quite ruined leather jacket on.

-Are you coming with me or not?- he asked again, looking at both Vincent and Victoria.

Vincent looked at her too to see what her reaction would be. She had not left the house since the night they had walked in together, not even for a minute. Vincent himself had spent most of the time shut inside it, going out in the street just from time to time to catch a breath of fresh air and try to recharge his energy. He was not used to that level of exposure to someone else's emotions.

Victoria looked back at him with wondering eyes. She seemed to be tempted by that offer but also scared and unsure. Vincent felt she needed to be reassured that they were not going to impose her anything and she was to do as she pleased.

-Would you like to go for a walk?- he asked -If you don't feel like it, it's fine.-

She smiled a little smile and let out her breath, which he had not noticed she was holding.

-Will you come with me?- she inquired back.

Vincent was surprised by that question despite, thinking about it, it was actually pretty unsurprising. She had started to speak to other people not longer than the day before, going out without him must have felt like a big step for her.

-Good idea! Vin needs to go out more often!- Cid exclaimed, smiling to Victoria as if she had suggested something extraordinary.

-If you both insist… - Vincent replied feeling his muscles tense at the idea of being amongst normal people in the streets of Edge.

Victoria seemed to appreciate his feedback and rewarded him with a meaningful smile. Remembering how he usually caught the attention of strangers in not quite a good way, he hoped she would not end up regretting his presence.

And so Cid, Vincent and Victoria went out in the quite crowded streets of Edge. At first they had to take it slowly because she appeared to be quite scared of the outside world. The two men found that perfectly understandable considering her background and were prepared to give her all the time she needed to feel safe and sure in this new situation. After lingering for almost a minute in front of the opened door, after Vincent stood out in the street himself, she finally felt enough comfortable to go outside.

The sidewalk was not wide enough for the three of them to walk together, therefore Vincent let Victoria and Cid go ahead and followed them silently checking around for possible menaces. He didn't consider probable for Hojo to wait for her outside Cloud and Tifa's house, but she was recovering from a big trauma and a lot of things can be harmful to someone in that situation. Something simple like being bumped into by a distracted stranger can be quite a heavy experience for someone who has been physically abused, and Vincent payed a lot of attention in keeping everyone as far as Victoria as he could. He was determined to shield her from any possible cause of distress. At first she looked a little overwhelmed by the people and the noises of the outside environment, but she become more and more used to it as they continued walking.

Cid's behavior helped a lot in creating a nice atmosphere. He looked very committed to distract Victoria by describing to her his latest flying machinery project and the items he intended to buy to continue his work on that. He indulged a lot in the engineering details no one but him or his beloved Shera could possibly understand and she seemed to follow his words like an attentive scholar. Vincent was very familiar with Cid's way to explain things and usually considered it a little bit awkward, but he had to admit this time it was working quite good. Victoria seemed interested and focused on the inventor's descriptions and walked quite naturally beside him for a few blocks without any incident. He was starting to feel a little bit more comfortable too, when he caught some words of the conversation happening between the other two and found out the subject had shifted from Cid's invention to a more generic theme: flying.

-I'm obsessed!- Cid admitted, note overstating the situation at all -Flying is amazing! You should try it, it's a kick ass experience!-

Vincent lost interest in the subject. Maybe it was because he really was able to do something similar to flying, but he had never shared Cid's enthusiasm about the thing. For him, it was not so different from walking and running. But he guessed creatures that couldn't actually fly with their own body felt something like the thrill of the forbidden, and Cid was surely their champion.

-I did fly once.- Victoria replied -I don't remember much of it, but it felt really good.-

Vincent, who had decided their conversation was not of any interest to him and had gone back to focusing on the surroundings, shifted all his attention to that exchange. It was uncommon for her to share her past experiences, so he got really curious to hear more. Considering she had been held captive by Hojo for what he supposed was a very long time, when and how had she flown? Could there be some clues about her past?

-Yeah? Tell me all about it. What did you fly on?- asked Cid, clearly quite intrigued himself.

Vincent could not see Victoria's face but he immediately recognized that she was making a movement he didn't know his mind had become familiar with: her shoulders lifted a bit and he thought that she usually did that when she was smiling wholeheartedly.

-Actually, I didn't fly on something, but rather _with someone_.- she answered quite enigmatically.

Vincent frowned, wondering what that could mean. On the contrary, Cid seemed to understand without any effort the reference she was vaguely making and he consequently glanced back at his friend's face with a smirk.

-Oooh- the inventor said eloquently -I can guess with whom-.

Vincent looked at the inventor in confusion until he suddenly found himself holding his breath in astonishment. Were they really hinting at what he was now thinking of? That was not possible! Or was it? If Victoria had seen something he had tried very hard to keep anyone from witnessing, maybe...

Vincent had indeed the ability to do something similar to floating in the air, but he was quite sure - and really afraid - that she was actually referring to something different. He knew he had never used his own abilities in her presence, except for one particular feature he surely didn't consider as a proper skill. In fact, it was something he surely would have preferred to be totally incapable of.

Vincent was aware that Chaos had somehow allowed them to escape the Mansion and reach the 7th Heaven the night Victoria had found him. There was simply no other possible explanation for his lacking hours of memories that night and the fact that he had lost his consciousness in Nibelheim to suddenly recover it in the dusty grounds surrounding Edge, which happened to be on a whole different continent. He knew that, but he had done his best to avoid thinking about it, partially comforted by the idea that she must have been unconscious the whole time. But now that she was talking about flying with someone, and Cid seemed so sure that meant him, Vincent was forced to consider the possibility that she had been awake for at least part of the journey. And so, she had seen _him_.

He was so shocked by the mere possibility of that fact that he almost bumped into Victoria as her and Cid stopped walking all of a sudden. The inventor was still looking at him with an amused expression on his face, but then he gazed at Victoria and smiled.

-And how was it?- he inquired.

Before answering, she turned back to look at Vincent's face for a brief moment and closed her eyes in remembrance.

-It was… breathtaking.- she said, smiling as the memories evidently came back to her.

Vincent was astonished. She had been rescued from her captivity in Hojo's laboratory only to be kidnapped by a monster which had taken her into his arms and carried her across the sea to a stranger land. She must have been scared to death! Surely she had to be traumatized just seeing Chaos, let alone being taken away by him. And yet there she was, smiling as she remembered the whole thing like it somehow had been a good experience. How was that even possible? Was she insane?

-Where you not afraid?- asked Cid, voicing his friend's own doubts.

She shook her head firmly.

-Not at all. He held me tightly, so I could not fall. And his touch was very soft and gentle, I knew I couldn't get hurt in any way. I felt safer with him than ever.-

Victoria's eyes opened again and she looked back at Cid, which appeared to be really satisfied with the answers his questioning had led to.

-I don't find it hard to believe.- he replied, smiling at Vincent for a brief moment before starting to walk again and going back to explaining how his new flying ship would work. Victoria followed his example and continued to proceed at the inventor's pace listening to him. Only Vincent remained frozen where he was, his mind too busy trying to process what he had just listened to.

Where they _both_ insane? How could Cid say that he didn't find Victoria's depiction of the whole situation hard to believe? It was the quintessence of unbelievable things!

She had seen the beast that resided inside his body and her impression of the whole situation had been one of _safety_. She had felt good while a winged demon had been flying her hundreds of miles above the ground in the darkness of a rainy night. Vincent was surely inclined to believe that almost everything was better than being on Hojo's laboratory table, but it was simply too much to accept that a traumatized girl who had just escaped captivity was happy to be taken by Chaos.

-Vin! Are you gonna stay there all day?!- Cid shouted from a few meters forward, and Vincent's feet automatically started walking in the his friend's direction. His mind, however, was still trying to come to terms with the words he had just heard. His eyes searched for Victoria's, but she was facing forward and didn't look back at him. All he could see was the back of her figure, which looked exactly like a few minutes before, when they had left the 7th Heaven. Tifa had somehow found clothes that fitted her thin body and her stature more appropriately, and so she looked just like a normal girl walking down the street of the city. Even her shaved head had ceased to appear strange to him, for he had already grown accustomed to it. But now he looked at her like some kind of magical trick was going on before his eyes, because that normal-looking human had just said some of the most uncommon and unbelievable things he had ever heard.

Eventually they arrived at the store Cid wanted to buy material from, and the inventor suggested that they would continue their walk without him, because he was going to take his time in there.

-Let's meet back at the 7th Heaven. Take care of Vincent, ok?- he said to Victoria before disappearing behind the store's door.

She and Vincent remained on the sidewalk together, a few steps apart from each other. People kept passing by without paying too much attention to them, apart from the usual glares in Vincent's direction. But his mind was still so captured by the recent events that he didn't really notice any stare he got or any comment he inspired in those walking by. Even Cid's remark about her taking care of him, which normally would sting Vincent's pride or at least make him point out that the situation was actually the other way around, was not noticed by the former Turk. All his attention was captured by a dilemma: should he ask Victoria about her experience with Chaos some more or should he drop the subject and never talk about it the future?

Every time the demon took control over his body, Vincent's mind fell in a state of unconsciousness that lasted until Chaos had enough of him and returned where he had come from. Therefore, during Chaos appearances, not only Vincent had no power over his own body, but also no memories of the events were left in him after. Actually, sometimes he remembered glimpses of images or noises but nothing more than that. So, he was mostly unaware of Chaos behavior, and he had to deduce it by the visible aftermath the demon usually left around him, which was mostly destruction and, very appropriately, chaos. The demon didn't seem to have a proper goal or a plan about what to do when he was in control of Vincent's body. He simply took over when the rightful owner was panicked or under a great deal of stress. When Chaos left him, Vincent usually didn't feel better at all, but his body was so tired - and often injured - that his mind had to drop her own troubles and just focus on healing up.

Considering all this, the possibility to ask Victoria about Chaos' behavior was quite tempting to Vincent. In fact, he was very surprised by the demon's actions that night, for he had been never behaved in a rational or useful way before. Hearing her talking about him as a kind and gentle savior, Vincent wondered if something had changed in Chaos, or if that "good side" had always been there waiting for the occasion to show itself. After all, Chaos was connected to the Lifestream and the planet. Was that the reason why the demon had behaved in such a way with Victoria? Had the planet decided that she was supposed to survive and used him and Chaos as tools to make that happen? And what if…

-You look troubled- she commented, suddenly breaking the flow of his thoughts.

Vincent wondered once more what to do.

Should he ask her or not?

-I'm…- he started saying, trying to find the better words to put that whole mess into.

He was still wondering how to ask her, when a sudden and quite persistent vibration in his trousers startled him. Vincent's first thought was that someone had thrown a grenade at him, but grenades don't vibrate before exploding and there was really no reason why anyone would do something like that in broad daylight. He didn't know why his mind had made that absurd suggestion, but it was obviously just his phone ringing. Vincent reached for the item inside his pocket and flipped it open to see who was calling: it was Reeve. He glanced at Victoria and murmured something to excuse himself right before walking a few steps back to put some space between them. Reeve's phone call was probably going to be about her and it was not very polite to talk about Victoria in her own presence. He stopped a couple of meters away. They could still see each other, but the noises in the street should have been enough to make his voice unintelligible for her.

Vincent accepted the call without saying a word. Reeve was evidently not surprised by that reaction because he started talking straight away.

-How are things going down there? Did you figure out anything else?- he asked.

Vincent took a deep breath and glanced at Victoria briefly to check if she was doing ok. She was standing in front of the shop's window and looked perfectly fine. While answering Reeve's question, he looked around in the street.

-She has confirmed your suspicion about the things described in the journal. She knows she exists to be a mother of Jenova-improved children, or at least this is what she thinks about herself.-

Reeve sighed.

-I'm relieved that we know something, but I'm very sorry she's aware of this too. It must be very difficult for her. What about her parents?-

Vincent looked at his own feet and the pointy armor pieces he wore onto his shoes. Reeve was being quite delicate in trying to imply that she was Lucrecia's daughter without naming the woman.

-She doesn't know anything about that, I guess.- he answered.

Reeve begun to repeat the same questions they had considered together the day before. What if she really was the scientists' daughter? (Vincent noticed that, once again, Reeve had accurately avoided to pronounce Hojo and Lucrecia's names.) And what if she wasn't? Could there be others like her somewhere? How far had the experiment gone before their accidental discover? Was Shinra - or rather what was left of it - involved? Should the others be informed or should they wait the DNA test results? Did it really matter for the whole picture who Victoria's parents were? Was even the remote chance to bring back the original Sephiroth? Was the world in danger again?

All those questions simply had no easy answer and, while Reeve made suggestions about the whole situation, Vincent started tormenting a piece of cloth from his cloak to exorcise the stress he felt thinking about Hojo and Lucrecia. His gaze followed his fingers in that process and he started noticing that his main item of clothing was actually in a pretty miserable condition and pieces of it looked like they were just about to be torn apart. He wondered if Tifa and Cloud had some needle and thread to lend him for the evidently necessary repairs. He was very fond of his cloak and surely wouldn't want to see him torn to pieces. When he suddenly remembered he was having an important phone conversation with Reeve, luckily the other man was still making guesses about their situation, so it didn't look like he had missed anything important.

-I guess we should wait for the DNA test results and then decide what to do.- Vincent suggested, finding it was pointless and quite nerve wracking to keep on talking about what could or couldn't be happening. Luckily, Reeve agreed.

Now that the conversation was over, Vincent said goodbye to Reeve and put his phone back in the pocket where it belonged. Then, he remembered to check on Victoria and gazed back at her to find something quite unsettling was going on completely unnoticed by him. She was talking to a man, or rather a man was talking to her. Her mouth was definitely shut and she didn't look like she was going to ever open it. Vincent's attention instantly focused on the person who was addressing her.

He was a young man, maybe in his thirties, which looked perfectly normal. He wore cargo trousers and an old t-shirt and his hair was shaved on the sides of his head but long on the top. He was way taller than Victoria, maybe even a bit taller than Vincent himself, and it didn't look like he was carrying any weapon. Despite this, his body language instantly turned the former Turk's mood into combat mode. With the complicity of his height, the man towered over Victoria quite easily and Vincent noticed that she had stepped back from her previous position, probably trying to put some distance between her body and the man. She now was almost cornered against the shop's window and she was obviously uncomfortable. The stranger seemed to be incapable of noticing that evident truth or caring about it, and he didn't look like he was going to leave her some space or go away. He kept talking to her smirking in a way that made Vincent wonder how many punches would require him to make that guy spit all of his front teeth. That thought surprised him, because he was usually quite calm and reasonable even in the midst of a fight. Being angry was not a very uncommon thing for him, so he had learned to master his own anger and channel it into logical and strategic thinking. But right now it was very different, he really just wanted to punch the man repeatedly in the face using both his right and his left fist. He firstly cursed and then thanked himself for not having brought his rifle along, because he was suddenly afraid otherwise he would have shot the man without thinking twice about it. How could that idiot be so blatantly careless of Victoria's distress? How could he not see - or worst, _ignore_ \- the discomfort he was causing her? And what the hell was he saying to her, by the way?

Vincent took a few step forward and, before even considering what he would do next, he found himself just beside the man, a few inches away from him. Victoria's eyes left the impolite aggressor to shift on his own face, and the man turned right to look at him too.

-Ohi, what the hell?- exclaimed the stranger, frowning at him.

He had not yet closed his mouth after those words that his facial expression changed very rapidly from one of challenge and boldness to a bewildered and quite scared one. Vincent remembered that his own physical appearance was quite intimidating for someone who was not used to see him, and narrowed his eyes looking right into the other's pupils.

-Are you alright?- he asked, still looking at him but clearly talking to Victoria.

-Y-yes…- she muttered, her voice just a low murmur.

Vincent's gaze left the man to look at her and found she was more scared than he had been able to judge from afar. She seemed unharmed, but her hands trembled, even if she was clearly trying to hide them behind her back. He instantly looked back at the young man feeling more and more anger boiling in his stomach.

-May I help you?- Vincent asked. His voice was so low and harsh that sounded like a growl, even to himself.

The other's eyes blinked a few times and this seemed to make him recover some of the cockiness he had been showing to Victoria just a few minutes before.

-This is none of your business, man!- he replied, biting his lower lips in what was probably supposed to be a badass expression.

Vincent's mind was considering in which way to hit him to hurt him more when the shop's door opened and closed and Cid appeared right next to the three of them with a gigantic shopping bag full of what looked like very heavy stuff.

-You're still here?- the inventor asked, barely balancing the bag between his arms.

Vincent and the stranger looked at him and Cid frowned.

-What the hell is going on here?- he asked, shifting his gaze between the two of them.

The young man Vincent was still considering how to kill finally took a few steps back and raised his hands in front of his body in a clear sign of surrender.

-Nothing, man, I was leaving anyway- he said, actually walking away from them with an uncommonly fast pace. Vincent relaxed his hands, which he now noticed he had been closing into tight fists, and looked at Cid. The inventor checked Victoria's face and then smiled, losing all the traces of the serious expression he had been doing until a few instants before.

-I leave you alone for ten minutes and you find someone to fight with! What a wrangler!- he exclaimed, giving Vincent a hit with the side of his hips.

-Do you want to see what I bought?- he then asked Victoria, lowering a bit to show her the insides of the shopping bag without even waiting for her to answer his question. The girl seemed relieved to be engaged in something completely different from the situation she had just been into, and looked at Cid's supplies with a concentrated but quite serene expression.

Vincent was left to look at his two companions feeling like a fool. What the hell had happened to him? What had been that rage he had felt? What would have happened if Cid hadn't arrived? Had he really been so ready to punch that man in the face for having talked to Victoria? Well, it was actually not fair to refer to the situation as mere "talking". When you simply talk to someone, the person in question is not supposed to react like Victoria was doing. If this happened, any decent person would immediately stop and apologize, no matter what their original intentions had been. That stranger had either been so indifferent as not to notice her reaction or so heartless as not to give a damn about it, and he surely deserved to be blamed in both cases. But Vincent's furious reaction had been something completely different and clearly unproportioned to the simply bother created by someone who's doing something wrong. Looking at Victoria and Cid talking about bolts and screws, Vincent forced himself to relax his tensed shoulders. What was going on on with him?


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Vincent closed himself inside the bathroom near Tifa's bedroom and opened the shower tap. It had been a very long and stressful day, and he was eager to spend some time on his own without constantly having to dodge other people's presence. His friends were lovely human beings and he was very grateful for their existence in his life, but he had always been a loner and, especially when he was in distress, being in the presence of others made him feel just worse.

Thinking back to what had happened that morning on the streets, Vincent felt awkwardly lacking control over himself. His reaction to that man's aggressive behaviour towards Victoria had been a quite unpleasant surprise for him, who was used to consider himself pretty much in charge of his own emotions.

More accurately, in the long decades of shutting himself away from the outside world, Vincent had had nothing left to contemplate but the inside of himself. In doing so, he had become involuntarily very familiar with his own emotional landscape. He had explored every road and every corner so many times that he had come to the conclusion that his heart and mind had no more secrets left for him. That had been his view of the situation until that morning. But when that unknown man had spoken to the girl in that way, that well known landscape had suddenly changed. Where there was mostly numbness and detachment, a sudden anger had burst into flames and Vincent had found himself shocked to see such a strong passion kindle so rapidly in him. Of course, it was not a surprise for him to be bothered by an unkind behaviour, for he had never been able to endure lack of kindness from anyone. But why had he cared so much about this particular situation? In his long life he had witnessed people being killed and tortured in all sorts of ways without losing his mind, and now he had been so ready to use violence on a stranger just for talking harshly to a girl who was almost a stranger herself. Why had his emotive reaction been so immediate and strong? Was he starting to get too much involved in the outside world once again?

On the way home, Cid and the girl had kept on talking about the inventor's projects like nothing had happened, while Vincent had followed them passively lost in his thoughts. The fact that she looked like she had forgotten about it made him feel more awkward and out of place. He had continued to feel anger boiling inside him for quite a long time and his mind had kept on asking why. He had the impression that he was failing to understand himself, and that was a new and unpleasant feeling. Because of this, he had kept on feeling weirdly moody for the whole day. Trying to adjust to his new self and the consequences of his emotional change, he had spent the day avoiding his friend's presence, and finally, when he had been forced to spend some time with them during dinner, he had been more silent and less participative than usual.

Now, finally alone in that bathroom, with the locked door to shield him from the looks of his worried friends, Vincent took another very deep breath. He would have liked to change subject, but the thoughts his mind had been chewing all day long kept hunting him while he carefully removed his clothes and stepped into the hot stream of the shower. As the water poured down onto his tense body, he forced himself to relax. He slowly rotated his head to ease some of the stiffness of the neck and moved the shoulders in circles for a few times under the calmingly hot water. The shower stream poured onto his scalp providing something like a massage and spreading his hair all across his face.

He felt a bit renewed and calmer. He tried to convince himself that there was actually no need for him to be so upset about anything. He simply was no more used to interact with strangers and must have forgotten how rude and unpleasant humans can be with each other. It was not a big deal. The anger lingering in him would simply burn out with time. Probably, the next morning he would be himself again and that whole situation would look like a dream. He was making a fuss over nothing. After all those years of solitude and retirement, he could not easily be dragged back into the world's business and other people's lives. It had not happened with Sephiroth's threat to the planet and humanity, how could it happen because of a mere act of unkindness?

All these were rational and very good reasons for him not to freak out. Vincent would have liked to find himself very convincing, but despite all his efforts, the memory of Victoria's hands trembling under the insistence of that stranger's harassment kept visiting his mind like a recurring nightmare. He was unaware of the words the man had said to her, but he was sure that her eyes were filled with the same expression she had made the first night, while Hojo had been dragging her away from him. And those eyes had made him lose his mind.

Taking a very deep breath, Vincent leaned onto the shower wall. He felt stupid and inadequate and the sensation produced by the smooth surface of the ceramic tiles against his skin was surely good but not nearly enough to wipe away the mess that was going on in his mind. He grabbed the shampoo bottle with a sigh.

Why was his life always so messy?

After lingering in the shower for a very long time, Vincent started to feel guilty about the amount of water he had been consuming and finally resigned to get out. He carefully stepped out of the shower, burying himself in towels to avoid wetting the whole bathroom. The towels felt smooth and very soft against his skin and he tried to enjoy the sensation as much as he could before leaving that comfortable cocoon to face reality once again.

When he finally unlocked the bathroom door a few minutes later, he found that the house's upper floor was silent and desert, while some music and laughter could be heard from the 7th Heaven downstairs. The bar was, as usual, opened for business until past midnight.

Feeling very grateful for the absence of people on his path, Vincent sneaked through the corridor. Taking advantage of Tifa's working shift at the bar, he had asked her the permission to wash himself in her bathroom. He didn't want to occupy the one near his bedroom, hoping that the girl who shared it with him would wash and change there and go to bed before him. He really wished to dodge the occasion to talk about what had happened that morning because surely she had been as surprised by his behavior as he himself. And since he had no coherent explanation for that, avoiding any question about it looked like the ideal solution for him.

He opened the bedroom door slowly, trying to balance the dirty clothes he was keeping in his arms. His cloak tried very hard do escape from his grasp, and Vincent mentally cursed himself for choosing such a complicated outfit.

The room appeared to absolutely quiet and almost pitch dark, which made him hope that his plan had actually worked out well and she had already fallen asleep. Luckily, he had memorized quite soon the furniture's disposition in the room, which meant he could easily move into the darkness. He carefully drooped the clothes on the chair near the window, promising himself to be tidier in the morning, and moved with stealthy steps toward his bed. The wooden floor creaked a little under his naked feet, but the girl didn't seem to react in any way to that. The air of the room felt a bit colder than the one in the bathroom, but Vincent's skin was still hot from the shower, and that change of temperature was quite pleasant. He carefully listened to the girl's breath, which sounded regular and calm, so he guessed that she was engaged into what appeared to be a very profound and calm sleep. This made him almost smile in relief.

He was already in reach of the blankets when he suddenly heard a sigh behind his back. Vincent instantly froze, as if he had been caught red-handed in the middle of some crime. His heartbeat accelerated in a way that was very similar to what happened when he was being chased around by enemies during a fight. He almost reached for his right tight to grasp his shotgun before remembering that the weapon was not there, but most importantly there was really nothing to shoot at. The only danger in the room was a sleepy girl, whom he now suspected to be not so sleepy as he had wished her to be.

-Vincent?- her voice asked in a whisper, answering promptly to the question his mind was silently formulating.

He replied with an undefined hum. Of course she was awake, because luck was never on his side!

\- Why are you angry at me?- she asked.

Surprised by the sudden question, he finally abandoned the position in which he had frozen and looked in her direction. In the almost complete darkness of the room, he couldn't see anything, but his mind easily imagined her sitting on her own bed, looking at him with those big chocolate brown eyes.

-I'm not.- he answered, trying to sound perfectly calm -Why do you ask that?-

His heart was still adjusting to the absence of any real threat, and he could hear it beat so loudly that he almost feared she could hear it too. What a silly old man he was, getting all scared by a harmless girl!  
As he contemplated his foolishness, he heard her blankets moving.

-Since this morning, you've been avoiding me.- she replied.

He could hear her voice tremble a little.

Vincent didn't know how to explain his behavior to her. Actually, he had been avoiding everyone, but that looked like a very stupid and childish thing to say. When he had nothing clever to say, he usually just shut up, but people tended to be not quite satisfied by that behaviour. He guessed that Victoria would be unhappy about his silence too.

-I'm sorry.- she said, confirming his suspect -I didn't do anything to make that man feel like he could talk to me like that, I… -

-Of course you didn't!- he interrupted her quite abruptly -I… -

Silence fell and Vincent sat on his own bed feeling once again very stupid. He couldn't or didn't want to explain exactly why that thing had made such an impression on him. It seemed pretty idiotic to admit that he had been upset all day for the simple fact that someone had dared to behave so aggressively towards her. After all, it was none of his business. And yet...

-You…?- she asked.

-I'm not angry at you.- he replied, trying to buy some time to formulate a good explanation of his actions.

-Actually, I am angry at that man for treating you like that. I got so angry that I wished to hurt him, and that… scares me a little.-

Vincent was really surprised by his own sincere confession. He was not a liar, but usually he kept his reasons for himself and avoided explaining his behavior or commenting things when not necessary. That time, however, words had simply escaped his mouth before he had the time to think them through, which was something very uncommon for him.

She didn't say anything in reply, but he could hear her blankets moving again followed by the sound of light steps coming in his direction.

When the steps stopped, he could vaguely see what looked like a human shape standing right in front of him. His eyes were slowly adapting to the very low light of the room and now he could actually see something, even if not much. She was standing in front of him, and the cloth of her night dress, still swinging around after her movements, lightly caressed the lower part of Vincent's legs.

-And are you not mad at me for seeing him?- she asked.

-Mmm?- he replied, feeling quite confused by the evolution of that discussion.

-Not him, I mean _him_! I mean… the winged… _thing_?-

Oooh, Vincent thought. She meant Chaos.

In the confusion following their encounter with that man, he had ended up almost forgetting that she had talked about seeing Chaos. And saying very strange things, nonetheless.

-I would have preferred for you not to see him, but it's not like you had a choice.- he said -To be honest, I'm sorry you were forced to witness something like that. I guess it must be scary.-

He hoped to hear something more about the whole situation and something that made sense. That was the reason he had suggested that she must have been scared, because he hoped that she would confirm that. Perhaps she had not wanted to say it in front of Cid, so he had gallantly given her the opportunity to confess it now. He wanted to hear her say how afraid and confused she had been when Chaos had shown himself, to wipe away the nonsensical things she had said in the morning.

However, the girl didn't comment his words in any way, and he found himself waiting in silence for a few moments, considering once again the whole situation.

-I'm surprised you haven't spoken about it until today.- he said, once he had recollected his ideas.

Ok, maybe she hadn't been scared, but then what? He definitely wanted to know some more. Didn't she have questions about it? It sure was something anyone would be quite confused and willing to ask some clarifying questions about.

-But you never did either! I guessed… it was not something you'd like to talk about. Maybe I would have asked eventually, but I was kinda waiting for you to bring up the subject yourself. Surely I hadn't planned to talk about it with Cid or anyone else. I'm sorry, it just escaped my mouth before I could stop it.-

She was still in front of him, and Vincent's eyes could barely see her shape against the indistinguishable background of the room. Oddly, there was something that made him feel almost comfortable about being inside that darkness together. Despite being quite physically close to each other, somehow he felt safer now than when they had been meters apart but in plain light. It had something to do with the fact that they could not look into each other's eyes, nor read each other body language. And, at the same time, they didn't have to worry about their own body language because their bodies were not involved in the conversation.

It almost felt like they were bodiless voices, minds having an honest conversation without the many implications of being made of solid matter. In that particular situation, Vincent felt quite at ease saying things that would feel impossible to talk about in any other circumstance. Even speaking about Chaos and what the demon did to his body looked somehow easier now that said body was not visible to her.

-I was… surprised by the way you talked about Chaos.- he confessed.

After all, there was no reason to hide his surprise.

-Chaos?- she asked, sounding really confused.

-That's how it's called.- he explained.

Of course she couldn't possibly be aware of that information, but Vincent had somehow forgotten this for a few instants.

-Chaos- she repeated, as if she was trying to make that name known to herself.

-So… the winged person is not… you?-

That was a very good question.

Vincent took a deep breath trying to figure out the right words to explain the situation. It was somehow less difficult to talk about certain subjects in that darkness, but that didn't mean it was easy. Chaos was still a very personal topic for Vincent, and not a happy one.

-No, it's not me. It's something that's inside my body and sometimes it just… manifests.-

Choosing the words to express his thoughts made Vincent suddenly very conscious that he had never talked about Chaos before in his life, not even to his closest friends in the Avalanche. This girl, who was little more known to him than a perfect stranger, was actually the first human being he shared his experience about the demon with. He was revealing one of his biggest and darkest secrets to a person whose very name was unknown to him, despite his mind had kept thinking about her as "Victoria" since that dream he had made the night before.

He was unsure if the most surprising aspect of that situation was this one or the fact that talking to her about Chaos didn't feel as strange as he had imagined before. It all came quite naturally, to be honest.

-So, the things he said… that was not you talking?- she questioned.

When Vincent had thought that asking her about Chaos could bring him to discover things he had never known before about the demon, he surely hadn't imagined this sort of revelation. He had never even considered that Chaos could talk! It appeared that he was destined to be surprised again and again that day.

-No.- he replied, considering the possibility to explain himself better.

-Actually, I don't even remember what happens when he is… when he has control over me.-

-Oh- she said, and somehow it didn't seem to be a pleased sound.

Vincent frowned.

-May I ask what he has said to you?-

-He said " _we_ will protect you".- she replied.

-I thought he was you, so when you brought me here I guessed you had meant yourself and the others. But now… considering he is not you… do you think he meant you and him?-

Vincent shook his head lightly, even if she probably couldn't see him doing that.

Not only Chaos could talk, but he did it in a language known to them and saying things related to the situation in which he was showing himself. Also, why would the demon say something like that?

-I don't know anything about his mind. He is completely separated from me. Until now I wasn't even aware that he could talk.-

Victoria didn't reply to that comment and for a while they simply remained silent. Vincent was wondering about Chaos' nature and why he had decided not only to show himself in that particular situation, but also to go as far as to talk to her, tellying quite reassuring things nonetheless.

He had always considered Chaos to be nothing more than a beast drawn by sheer instinct, but now it was rapidly becoming impossible to dismiss him like that. He suddenly appeared to be acting in a very rational way.

Now, if the demon was capable of rational thinking, it was reasonable to assume his action were performed for some reasons, maybe in pursuit of some goals. But what could he be trying to obtain using Vincent's body as a vessel for his actions? And why was he so interested in the girl and in making her feel safe? Was there a reason that had brought Chaos to promise her his protection? Or was the demon simply fond of her somehow? Maybe he just hated Hojo as much as Vincent did and enjoyed seeing the scientist's plans fail.

Vincent almost laughed as that thought crossed his mind. The idea that Chaos could somehow be an ally to him was simply ridiculous. However, the information she had shared with him surely had put the demon in a new light, even if he wasn't quite sure if that had any consequences on him.

-So, how did Chaos enter your body?- she eventually asked.

That was a very understandable and predictable question, but it was also the one million gil question that Vincent would probably never be ready to answer. Even complete darkness was not enough to make him feel safe talking about Lucrecia and her role in his life, it was simply too much for him.

-Please, don't take this personally, but I won't answer that question.- he replied, immediately regretting how his voice had sounded cold and unforgiving.

-Oh- she said - I'm… I'm sorry I asked…-

She sounded hurt and suddenly very unsure. Vincent regretted the bad turn suddenly taken by their conversion. He felt compelled to apologize for his harsh tone but the sudden appearance of sounds from the corridor stopped him from doing so. Steps and voices coming neared and neared could be heard quite clearly, and Vincent automatically focused on those noises to check who was on the other side of the door.

-... Don't… jealous!- Cid's voice was saying with a laughing tone.

Although it was impossible to clearly hear all the words, Vincent effortlessly recognized the joking tone of his friend.

Victoria remained silent too. Maybe she wished to listen as much as him.

-I'm not!- shouted Yuffie's voice in return. This time Vincent had no difficulty in hearing her very well. She really had a habit of talking too loudly.

-Shhh!- replied Cid, adding some words Vincent couldn't understand.

-I don't care!- Yuffie protested without lowering the volume -Something's not right! He spends all the time in there with her! Why am I the only one who wonders what's so interesting about her? What makes him suddenly so happy to spend hours with her instead of us?-

Vincent suddenly felt even more grateful for the darkness that kept him and Victoria from seeing each other, because Yuffie's not so kind words would have made really difficult for him to look her in the eyes.

-I mean, are you kidding me? He doesn't give a fuck about us _for years_ , he even has the guts to disappear and go back to that coffin as if we don't even exist, and suddenly this random girl pops into his life and he's all about her! I get it, she needed help, but why does this mean they have to stay _alone together_ all day long?-

Yuffie's tone was clearly implying that something not so genuinely selfless was going on between the two of them.

Vincent felt the urge to sink into the Earth and never emerge again.

Cid said something in return, but this time he couldn't understand a single word.

-Yeah, but she looks fine to me: she can talk, she can walk, what else does she need? She's ready to leave and let us go back to our lives, Vincent included! Is she keeping him prisoner or what?- the ninja argued.

-Shhh! We... helping people in need… selfish… understand?- Cid replied, this time being partially audible.

-I'm not selfish and you know that! I just want to… going on… why… Vincent… -

It appeared that Yuffie was finally accepting the idea of keeping her volume down, but Vincent thought it was too late. The things she had said about him and Victoria had been so clearly audible that the girl standing in front of him surely couldn't have missed a word.

That was quite awkward by itself, but what made him feel even worse was that some of Yuffie's feelings and thoughts were actually the same he had had during the previous week. He had wished for the whole situation to end and for the girl to stop being his problem as soon as possible too. But now that someone else had spoken those thoughts out loud in her very presence, he felt deeply guilty and selfish for even thinking those things in the privacy of his own mind. Of course, she didn't know that, but he did and that was enough to make him feel really bad.

Vincent couldn't help but wonder what would have happened to him if Cloud and the others had wished to quickly get rid of him as he had hoped to do with Victoria. And, as Yuffie had so eloquently said, he had paid his friends back disappearing without even a word.

It appeared he had failed both at taking care of people and at being grateful to people who took care of him: a success on all fronts.

While he was considering his many faults, he heard Victoria's steps moving away from him and the sound of her body thrown onto what he supposed was her own bed. She made a sobbing sound. It appeared she was feeling even worse than him. This was to be expected, but Vincent was so used to be torn apart by his own distress that had some troubles keeping track of others' emotions and reacting promptly to them.

He stood up, eager to somehow fix this, but only then he realized he didn't know what to do. He wanted to comfort her and say that she was welcomed to stay as long as she needed to, but words kept tangling inside his mind and couldn't reach his mouth.

As she began to cry louder, Vincent had a heavy heart feeling that it was all his fault.

-I… I don't… - he tried to say, failing.

-Go away!- she replied, her voice shaking -Just go!-

Vincent sighed and resigned to obey.

It surely looked like he could do nothing to make things better at that moment, and he could not blame her for wanting to be away from him. He knew very well the need to be alone while suffering, so he was quite ready to obey that order and leave her the space she needed to calm down and feel better.

So, hoping that Cid and Yuffie had already gone to bed, he quickly walked in the door's direction. He was ready to leave her the entire night for herself and sleep on living room's floor, if necessary. After all, he was used to lay in a coffin, the floor could not be worse than that.

Focusing on those things, he had already reached the door and placed his right hand on the handle when she exclaimed -Oh gods!- and he heard running feet coming in his direction from where she was.

For the second time that night, he felt like he had been caught in the middle of committing a crime, and promptly dropped his grip on the door's handle to prepare his body to face the consequences of what he guessed was Victoria running towards him.

He knew he had been right in his guess when she hit him hard in his chest with her head and her whole body slammed into his own quite forcefully. It appeared she hadn't considered how small the room was when she had started to run towards him.

She grabbed the cloth of his clothes with the same desperate strength she had used on their first encounter and she buried her face into his chest, rapidly wetting Vincent's shirt with her numerous tears.

He stood still, paralyzed once again by the reality of their bodies. He had quite enjoyed pretending they were only voices, and now that she was suddenly making physical contact with him again, he was experiencing some familiar troubles with this invasion of his personal space.

-Don't leave me!- she muttered between sobs pressing her forehead against him.

Vincent noticed she had moved her hands onto his back, not quite hugging him but more like stopping him from actually going anywhere.

Remembering Yuffie's words, he thought Victoria was now literally taking him prisoner. He also noticed that his discomfort was more psychological than actuality physical, and once again he thought that bodies adjust to new situations much faster than minds.

He could have easily freed himself from her grasp, but rejecting someone who is already feeling very much rejected didn't look like a good idea to him. Also, he had caused her distress, so it was fitting that he had to make things right. If that meant letting her cry as long as she needed against his body, he had no intention of robbing her of what she needed to feel better. Moreover, had seen her cry so often in the past days that, for the first time in his whole life, he actually thought he could handle the situation on his own.

Because of this, he resigned to stay still and wait for her to calm down a little, hoping that no one would walk through the corridor in the meantime. The closed door was not enough to shield her crying noises and Vincent really would have liked to avoid any outside intervention.

To make her feel he was not going away, he carefully put his own hands on her back, in what was a very distant relative of a hug. In doing so, he discovered that her nightgown left a portion of her back naked, and his hands had landed across the border between the cloth and her skin. The intimacy of that touch made him feel really uncomfortable at first, but Victoria didn't seem to mind that contact at all an, after a while, something different captured his attention.

The sensation of her skin against his own struck Vincent as something new and intriguing. She was so smooth and tender compared to the relatively harsh cotton of the nightgown, and touching someone else without the leather gloves he usually had on surely felt like a completely different experience.

Admittedly he had been touching Victoria with his naked hands a few times before, but this particular time felt very much unlike the others.

The night they had escaped the Mansion together he had been forced to make physical contact with her _a lot_ , but in that situation the worries about her survival and the violation of his own personal space had completely filled up his mind, leaving little space to consider what did it feel like to touch directly someone else's body. He remembered that he had felt that shiver through him, and that had made him feel weird, both in a good and in a bad way, but he didn't remember that as a mostly pleasant experience.

Similarly, the evening he had shaved her head, he was too focused on the task assigned to him to notice all the touching that was going on. Only after that, when their fingers had briefly made contact, he had felt shaken by that, but it still had felt like an alarming experience, something unknown but also unwelcomed. He remembered how those touches had made him feel uncomfortable and thrown off his balance, which was a very challenging feeling for someone who committed so much to be in total control of himself and completely unavailable for other people to touch.

It was strictly on purpose that Vincent protected himself behind clothes, gloves and pointy things that did a really good job in keeping people away from his body. The vast majority of his skin was never even available for others to see, let alone to touch. The reason for this choice had more to do with personal safety than style, even if Cid sometimes joked on his strange outfit saying that he dressed like that to capture all the attention.

Being free for others to touch for Vincent meant being at their mercy, not only in a fight but also (and mostly) in everyday life. It meant to be subjected to their will and the possibility to be touched, casually or purposefully, by others without his own consent. He couldn't bear that.

He knew that physical contact was a big part of human's experience on Gaia and played a huge role in people's relationships with each other, and he had long before decided nothing good for him could come from that.

So, he had chosen for himself an attire that surely didn't invite people in, and that protected his skin from direct contact if and when someone occasionally dared to try.

This premises made what he was feeling now so unexpected and astonishing for him. He was currently involved in the most significant amount of touching he had had in the last forty years of his life,and this was supposed to feel uncomfortable and unwelcomed. But it actually did not. He was not feeling overwhelmed or upset.

To be honest, he was just curious to know and feel _more_. He didn't shiver and his head was not dizzy. His body felt _normal_ and his mind was calm.

Being touched by Victoria didn't make him feel like running away and locking himself in his coffin once again. On the contrary, he was very surprised to see how it just made him want to discover again what he had been avoiding for four decades.

His fingers kept shaking lightly as if they wanted to explore the feeling of Victoria's skin against their own. She was so soft, smooth and warm under his touch and she didn't make him feel bad at all. On the contrary, it felt strangely good to be so close to someone else. It was a sentiment that he had long forgotten but now was slowly coming back to him, blurred as the memory of a dream. A feeling of peacefulness and tranquility, something similar to coming home after a long and tiring journey.

Vincent's mind got lost in the contemplation of these unknown sensations and the memories that were brought back to him, and for a few moments he completely forgot the reason why he was making physical contact with her. He forgot who she was at all, and all the worries and questions that surrounded her existence. His consciousness traveled from his brain to his fingers and he gave up the control over the rest of his body to just focus on what his hands were experiencing and how that made him feel.

When he got back in the moment, he discovered that Victoria's sobs had become less noisy and her body was now much closer to his own. What had been a mechanical and not very heartfelt imitation of a hug had somehow evolved into a real one, in which their bodies leaned onto each other in perfect equilibrium. Her hands' grip on his back had become weaker and he noticed that it was actually him who was now holding her in place. He was no more held prisoner, but to his own surprise he discovered he was not eager to escape.

Vincent noticed that the whole front part of Victoria's body was in contact with his own, so he could feel her not just with the tips of his fingers but with his arms, legs and chest too, even if their clothes kept their skins from touching. Even his chin was buried in her short and spiky hair, because she was so much shorter than him that his whole head was above her own. He could feel distinctly the wet of her tears soaking his shirt and her skinny arms surrounding his waist. Now that she was no more shaken by her crying, he could even easily follow the changes that breathing produced in the way her chest pushed onto him and retreated regularly. He noticed also that their breathing rhythms had naturally become synchronized.

And she smelled good. Her head was mostly dominated by the smell of the shampoo, which was actually the same one that he has used too. It was simply logical that Tifa and Cloud had not provided every bathroom of the house with a different shampoo, but Vincent's mind was not very fond of logical thinking at the moment. He just detected the smell and liked it for the familiar sensation it produced in him. It didn't feel like something foreign and unknown, but rather like something known and familiar, as if she was somehow not a separate entity from him.

His hands had ran into a scar on Victoria's back, just a couple of inches under her neck, but rather than wondering what had Hojo done to her to produce that permanent cut on her skin, Vincent unconsciously mapped that unknown territory with his fingertips.

It was the most intimate he had been with someone in his whole adult life, but somehow it felt calming rather than allarming, pleasing rather than scaring.

He felt so relaxed that he could probably fall asleep like that without even noticing.

-Please… don't go. I'm sorry, I… I can't… I can't be without you… - she said, and because her face was still buried in his shirt, he felt the vibration of the sounds against his own chest, almost as if she had spoken directly inside his body.

He found quite ironic that she was begging him to never go away while he was already feeling so compelled to stay forever in that way.

How fascinating that only a few minutes before he had been so glad to talk to her pretending their bodies didn't exist, while now he felt suddenly so grateful for the fact that they did.

-I'm here- he said, not really thinking his own words through before pronouncing them -I won't leave unless you ask me to.-

As he said that, he realized he was not so sure he was now capable of leaving even if she had actually asked him to go. He felt under some sort of spell that made his body heavier and less willing to move than usual. He opened his eyes, noticing just then that he didn't recall having closed them, and tried to regain some self control. The room was still pitch black and they were so close to the door that once again Vincent thought that if anyone had walked down the corridor they could have easily heard Victoria's cry. But she was not crying anymore. She must have stopped while he was not capable of noticing.

-I'm sorry- he said, without having a clear understanding of what he was apologizing about.

She held him tighter and Vincent remembered once again Yuffie's words about her keeping him her prisoner. He knew the ninja meant no harm and was probably only worried about his strange behavior, but Victoria didn't know her and must be feeling very upset by what Yuffie had said about her.

He felt he needed to make things right, to Victoria and to the friends that took care of them both and he was neglecting.

At the moment, he could start with the girl in his arms.

-I'm sorry for what Yuffie has said. She is not a mean person, she's just… I think she is just upset for my behaviour, but this is not your fault. It's mine.- he explained.

-Do you… agree with her?- Victoria asked, making his chest once again vibrate with the sounds her mouth made.

That feeling was amazing. If only she had talked more, he could experience it longer and find out more about it.

-Mmmm...?-

Vincent was losing coherent thought once again.

-About me. Do you think that I keep you prisoner? That I must go away and leave you alone?-

Vincent resisted the urge to say something like "please, don't _ever_ leave me alone" and tried to focus on his rational self, to answer properly to that question.

He knew very well he had wished for the whole situation to just stop being his problem, but it was clearly not fair to say that he now wanted her to go away. Even considering that at some point their bodies would stop being so intertwined, and reality would come back to hunt them with its usual unpleasantness, she was now somehow part of his life, and there was no point in denying that or wishing it not to be.

Also, it was true that in the past days he had strongly wished not to have ever found himself where he was, but even before that night, he hadn't actually wished to send her away. And not just because she was important to discover what Hojo was doing, but because he could not bring himself to be so cold hearted as to see someone so desperately needing his help and turn aside. And, despite it was hard for him to admit it even to himself, Victoria was indeed the closest thing he had ever had to a kindred spirit. She was very different from him in so many ways, and yet somehow also very similar in so many others. As Tifa had pointed out a few days before, their past experiences surely had something in common, but he had the feeling that what he sensed was not so simple to explain nor so logical.

They shared something which he couldn't fully understand yet, but he could sense it and was undoubtedly curious to know more.

-Oh gods!- she exclaimed, suddenly trying to wriggle free from his hold -I am ruining your life!-.

She must have decided that his long silence was very eloquently confessing that Yuffie was right about everything.

The enchantment broke like a glass thrown against a wall and Vincent immediately retracted his body to let her free, feeling very self conscious and alarmed once again. What had he been doing? What was happening to him?

In the urge of suddenly being away from her, Vincent must have done something wrong, or maybe she had lost her balance on her own, because he heard a thud and one of her feet kicked his right ankle. She must have fallen to the floor.

-Shit!- she cursed, making other noises that Vincent couldn't understand.

Instead of worrying or feeling guilty, he somehow felt tempted to laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation, but he restrained himself to avoid offending her. Instead, he leaned forward to help her get up, but the hand he was offering in help ended up onto her face in quite a graceless way.

-Sorry!- he said, moving the hand away and rapidly becoming more and more tempted to laugh at their clumsy movements. Maybe being in almost complete darkness was not so good, after all.

-Are you ok?- he asked, keeping his body as still as he could.

-I just fell- she confirmed. Her voice didn't sound angry or sad. Maybe she was starting to see the ironic side of the situation too.

-Is it ok if I turn on the lights?- Vincent asked -I think we should stop hitting each other.-

She made a sniffing sound and answered affirmatively. Her breath sounded calm.

Trying very carefully not to stomp her, Vincent reached the nearest switch. As he pressed the button, light instantly shown into the room and he automatically closed his eyes in discomfort.

When he felt comfortable enough to try to open them again, he saw Victoria was half-seated and half-laid onto the wooden floor. Her eyes were shut, as she was probably trying to shield them from the sudden brightness of the light.

Vincent waited patiently for her to open them up and slowly leaned forward, offering once again his hand to help her get up.

She looked at him with an undecipherable expression and grabbed his hand firmly. He noticed that she appeared to be calm and no more on the edge of crying, so maybe he had somehow succeeded in handling the crisis on his own. Perhaps he was really starting to learn something about dealing with other people's troubles.

Once he had made sure that Victoria was safely standing onto her own feet, he gently pulled his hand back from her, silently implying that it was time for them to stop holding each others. At first she seemed to resist him a bit, but then she let go herself, adding a condescending nod with her head.

Vincent watched closely as she walked back to her bed, and his eyes automatically indulged for a little while on the area on her back where his hands had been placed just a few minutes before. She moved slowly and carefully as if she was walking underwater, but she eventually arrived at her bed without falling.

When she sat on the edge of the bed, she turned her head to watch him in the eyes.

-Why are you standing there?- she asked. Her voice sounded low and a bit sleepy.

Vincent shrugged and rapidly walked to his own bed, where he sat right in front of her.

-Now what?- she asked again -Do we go to sleep?-

He nodded. It seemed like the only reasonable thing to do, even if he wasn't sleepy at all. Victoria's eyes, on the contrary, were already half closed. She was visibly tired, and he surely couldn't blame her for that: crying is an exhausting activity.

She leaned on her right to reach the lamp that was placed on the bedside table and turn on the little black switch. Vincent reached for the chandelier switch, which was near his own bed, and turned it off. Now the room was lighted by a much softer and warmer light, and he noticed that his eyes probably were a bit tired too, because the change made him feel better.

-I like it better this way- Victoria said, perhaps talking to herself.

Vincent replied with an affirmative hum, fixing his pillow with an automatic gesture.

-You didn't answer my question.- she said, making him turn his head to look at her.

-Mmm?-

-Well, it was not really a question, but I said that I am ruining your life, and you didn't say "no"...- she explained. She was watching him closely, as if she was trying to study his reaction to her words now that there was light in the room.

-You are not- he said, simply.

There was not much more he could explain. He was not mad or unhappy that she had appeared in his life, and that was all.

Victoria smiled and looked away.

-Oh, you are always so eloquent!- she joked.

Vincent felt happy that she was in the mood for sarcasm, even if he was the object of the joke.

-What about you, then?- he heard himself asking, not knowing were that was actually coming from.

Victoria's gaze locked back into his eyes with a suddenly very serious expression.

-What do you mean?-

-I guess this must be better than being prisoner of the Mansion, but are you happy here? Perhaps you'd like to leave and go somewhere else…- he explained.

She smiler again, but this time it was a bitter smile.

-There's nowhere else I'd rather be. Until you found me I was not even properly living a life that could be ruined, so this days here have been the most happy that I have ever had in my whole life.- she replied.

-But before that, you…-

-There's nothing before that!- she interrupted him quite abruptly, shaking her head strongly -There's only now and here, this room and this house, this amazing people that have decided to shelter me and… _you_ , of course.-

She said the word "you" with an intensity that made Vincent feel as if there was some metaphysical meaning to it. Also, since she had mentioned the others and the decision "to shelter" her, he suddenly remembered Yuffie's words and the fear that he and Reeve had shared the day before about Victoria's existence. And suddenly he was struck by the enormity of the sin he had committed stealing her DNA from her, a girl who had put all her trust in him, a girl who could say that he was "you" evoking such a transcendental purpose to his existence in her life. A girl whom he had betrayed in such a vile way.

He felt the urge to confess his crime to her like a sudden and uncontrollable gag reflex, but he somehow managed to stay silent. She had just reached a balance after another difficult day, he could not ruin her night vomiting onto her his confession. He had already done what he had done, telling her now couldn't cancel the past. But he could let her have a serene night of sleep before exposing her to the ugly truth, and he was definitely going to do that. The urge to purge himself from his sin by confessing it to his victim was pure egoism, and he would at least avoid her that.

Let her sleep, he thought, in the morning she will be still here, ready to discover how undesirable and inadequate her "you" can be.

-What's going on?- she asked, looking at him with a very concerned expression.

Vincent cursed himself for being such an open book to her and forced his face into something similar to a smile.

-I'm just tired- he lied, hoping that she was too sleepy or too unfamiliar with him to believe those words. Victoria looked not fully convinced, but she yawned and said that she was quite weary herself.

And so, they agreed to go to bed, and Vincent buried himself under the blankets, hoping that his sin would miraculously disappear during the night and, as the sunshine would enter through the window, he would wake up to discover he was a less stupid and wiser man who would never steal something as private as a DNA sample from a person who had been closed in a laboratory and experimented on for years.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

-Vincent?- a voice was calling. -Vincent?-

He rolled onto his right side to make that noise go away. It sounded like someone was calling him from the depth of space, but it still bothered him in his sleep.

Couldn't they just shut up?

-Vincent, please wake up- the voice said again, and this time he recognized it was Victoria's. He hummed in response, not sure if his purpose was to make her feel that he was listening to or to suggest her to go away and let him be.

-Please, wake up!- she repeated, and this time he sensed an alarming tone in her voice.

Vincent opened one eye to find out he could see nothing more than when he had had it closed. He guessed it was still night. So why was Victoria waking him up? And why did she sound so alarmed?

-Vincent, please…-

-...awake- he hummed, trying to shake away what was left of his sleep and regain coherent thought.

She sighed and stopped shaking his arm, a thing that he hadn't really noticed she was doing until suddenly she wasn't.

-What's wrong?- he asked with a voice made deeper and rougher by sleep.

-I… I dreamt about… _him_ \- Victoria replied, and the way her voice broke while she said "him" left no need to ask who had she dreamt about.

Vincent pictured Hojo's face in his mind and suddenly he was as awaken as he could be. He got up and seated on his bed, moving his hands forward in search of Victoria. He grabbed one of her shoulders as soon as he reached it.

-It was just a dream- he said, almost mechanically.

-Yes but… It felt so real…- she replied. She didn't sound like she was crying, but her voice was shaken a bit. He surely couldn't blame her for that, sometimes he himself had nightmares involving Hojo, and the feeling left behind by those was not easy to shake off.

-Will this ever stop?- she asked.

It fucking won't, Vincent thought, but he said: -Eventually it will become less and less likely to happen-. It was true, or at least partially true.

-It felt so real, I… I feel like I'm still _there_.- Victoria said, and he felt her shaking under his hand.

He was awfully aware of what that felt like and had no doubt that she needed to shake that feeling off as soon as possible, but Vincent himself had no clue how to achieve that. When he dreamt about Hojo, the only thing he could do was lay in the bed (or the coffin) feeling like crap until sleep came back to him. It could take hours, and he didn't want her to be like that for such a long time. So, he had to think about something different to do.

-How can I make you feel better? Would you like to tell me about your dream or…?- he asked, hoping that she would provide him a clear path to follow.

-I can't talk about it!- she replied passionately -And I don't think I can go back to sleep either. I'm afraid the nightmare would continue if I fall asleep again.-

-What time is it?- Vincent asked.

Perhaps it was almost morning and they could just get up very early.

-I don't know, but it's still night.- Victoria said.

Vincent considered their possibilities, which were not so many. They could go back to sleep, but that had already been ruled off by her. Talking about Hojo was not an option either, so what could they do to distract themselves from those awful memories without waking up the entire house?

-Ok- he said, as what he hoped was a good idea crossed his mind -We need to get out of this room. What if we go down to the kitchen and make ourselves a cup of tea?-

Victoria stood silent for a few moments, which he supposed she was using to consider his proposal.

-Only if we don't wake up the others- she finally replied -I can't bear to be amongst people now. -

He understood her feeling completely, and so he gladly agreed to the condition she had set and they both left the room trying to make as little noise as they could.

The road to the kitchen was quite simple: down the stairs, into the big living room, and then on the right. The only possible obstacle was that Cid slept on the sofa, which was in the very middle of the living room. Vincent remembered his friend to be one of those people who fall asleep instantly as they touch the pillow and can not be bothered by the loudest sounds, so he hoped his memories were truthful and guided Victoria through the dark living room holding her hand in his own.

When they finally reached the kitchen, he closed the door behind them and lit a little lamp that stood on the shelves over the sink.

The room was impeccably tidy and clean, which was not a surprise considering how Tifa liked the house to be functional and well kept. Also, having received a military training, Cloud tended to be very neat and he always cleaned up instantly after using anything, a quality that Cid, Barret and Yuffie unfortunately did not share with him.

The kitchen itself was a medium sized room clearly designed to be more efficient than beautiful, dominated by a wooden peninsula over which some pots hung from the ceiling. The oven was just near the sink, and the huge metallic fridge stood in a corner, producing a low and reassuring sound that made Vincent think about a purring cat.

He had no idea where the necessary for the tea would be but, as soon as he lit up the light, Victoria's hand left his own and she marched across the room in a certain cabinet's direction. When she got there, she opened it to reveal that what they needed was right in there.

Vincent stood by as she filled the kettle with water, put it on the cooker and kindled the flames. Then she went to a different cabinet, from which she pulled out two cups and a light coloured wooden box. She laid all of these things on the peninsula right in front of him, opening the box to reveal several qualities of tea neatly divided by type.

-Don't look at me like that- she whispered -I helped Tifa make breakfast this morning while you were asleep.-

There was a hint of a laughing tone in the way she had said "while you were asleep", as if she was sarcastically scolding him for sleeping too long. Vincent remembered the sensation he had felt while she was trying to wake him up in the morning, and then almost blushed considering how less than 24 hours before he had felt shaken by the mere touch of her hand on his face, while he had now hugged her for long and probably very awkward minutes. What did she think about that? She seemed to react quite naturally to all his behaviours, but he suddenly realized that what felt so confusing on the inside must have looked at least as much confusing from the outside.

She must think I'm mad, Vincent thought, and maybe I really am.

Meanwhile, Victoria stood back towards the fridge, not quite leaning onto it but resting on her own feet as the kettle heated up on the cooker. When Vincent focused back on her, he noticed that it looked like performing that practical task had taken her mind away from the memory of her nightmare. But now that they were left with nothing to do but wait for the water to boil up, she had started to torment her lower lip biting it repeatedly. Vincent recognized that as a typical stress responsive behavior that was not completely unknown to him either. He knew how important it is to focus on something different in this kind of situations, so he hastily searched for something to say that would distract her.

-How do you like your tea?- he questioned, feeling so stupid for not being able to find something less trivial to ask her.

Victoria, whose eyes had been fixed on nothing for quite some time, looked at him and smiled nervously.

-I really don't know.- she replied -I haven't been drinking tea for such a long time that I'm not even sure I remember the taste of it.-

Vincent felt more stupid. He also thought that talking to her without triggering memories of her traumatic past was really a challenge, since she had lived a huge part of her life in that situation. Once again, he wondered how his friends dealt with him without accidentally bringing up memories of Hojo and Lucrecia every two sentences.

He had to admit they were mysteriously really good at it.

-Don't worry- she said, probably guessing his thoughts -I know it's not easy talking to someone like me, and I appreciate your efforts to make me think of something else. Actually, leaving the bedroom was a good idea, I already feel better just by being somewhere else.-

Vincent tried to smile in appreciation of that improvement, and she seemed to find his reaction agreeable, because she smiled back.

-I like it here- she said, looking around the kitchen with her big eyes.

Vincent had the feeling that they were finally starting to ease up. Victoria really seemed to be less tense and more at ease in that room, and he quite liked the kitchen himself. He appreciated the fact that it was so clean, tidy and essential, it felt calming and a bit reassuring.

He was actually on the edge of saying something about it when the kitchen door suddenly began to open and a pair of light blue eyes appeared behind it.

-What is going on here?- asked Cloud with a whisper.

Vincent relaxed his shoulder that had automatically become tensed, and instinctively nodded in his friend's direction, even though Cloud had not asked a yes or no question.

The blonde hero entered the room with a fluid movement and closed the door behind himself producing almost no sound.

-Are you both ok?- he asked, shifting his gaze from Vincent to Victoria and then back, as if he could detect what could be wrong about them just by checking their appearance.

-Yes, thank you.- Victoria replied, and Vincent envied the natural way in which she seemed to have reacted to Cloud's arrival. -We are just making tea, would you like to have a cup?-

-Thanks, but no.- said Could, smiling warmly. Vincent remembered his friend's attitude a few years before and how it used to be very uncommon to see him smile. He seemed almost a different man now.

-I just wanted to have a glass of water. Barret is snoring super loudly, and it's really difficult to sleep like that when you have enhanced senses.-

The joking tone used by Cloud made Vincent almost laugh. He also remembered that the ex-soldier had complained about the same thing at the breakfast table and felt even more inclined to laugh while Barret's offended face came to his mind. He resisted the urge only to avoid waking up Cid, who would have surely heard him despite not having enhanced hearing.

-I'm so sorry- Victoria said instead, capturing once again his attention -We have stolen your room and because of me you are all forced out of your usual beds-.

She really looked sorry for the situation, and Vincent almost pointed out that his usual bed was a coffin, which was surely not as comfortable as the bed Tifa and Cloud had assigned to him in their house.

-Don't worry- the blond one replied while reaching for a bottle of water and an empty glass -We may complain a little but it's actually quite good to have the whole band here together. Denzel and Marlene are super excited by your presence, too. They think Vincent is something like a cool uncle and are overjoyed every time he talks to them.-

Vincent frowned, for his perception of the situation was very different from what Cloud was saying. He had never noticed any particular interest towards him in the kids and he felt everything but cool while interacting with them. They reminded him of how much time had passed since his childhood, and he often used to say things in a way that they found very funny, because he couldn't help talking in a way that sounded very old fashioned to them.

-Also, we are glad you're here, safe and sound.- Cloud added, looking very openly in Victoria's eyes. Vincent noticed that her cheeks got a bit redder and she quickly looked away, unable to sustain his frank gaze.

-T-thanks- she stuttered, scratching her left arm in a nervous gesture.

Cloud didn't seem to notice her reaction. He drank his glass full of water in a single sip and stretched his arms over his head for a few moments.

-Time to go to bed- he said with a smile -Tomorrow's another day of work.-

He carefully put the now empty glass in the sink and waved them goodbye.

-Goodnight- he whispered, opening the door and disappearing as quickly as he had arrived.

Vincent was very fond of Cloud, but he felt glad to be left alone with Victoria again. Somehow he felt their shared connection with Hojo made them both so distant from him, even if Cloud himself had been trapped in the scientist's laboratory for five long years with Zack after the Nibelheim incident. Perhaps the big difference was that Cloud had somehow moved on with his life and left that thing in the past where it belonged, while Vincent surely was still trapped in what had happened to him so many years before.

He felt that Victoria was somehow halfway between them: she had obviously not fully recovered from what was still a very recent past to her, but she seemed to be trying to move on in a way that was completely unknown to Vincent. Maybe in a few years she would become like Cloud, a fully functional human being with a dark past and a brighter future ahead. Was Vincent the only one destined to be defined by what had happened to him?

The kettle finally whistled and he was distracted from his brooding. Victoria quickly turned off the cooker and poured the boiling water in their two cups. Then, she examined the tea box, visibly unsure.

-Perhaps we should go with something caffeine-free, or we will never go back to sleep- Vincent suggested, picking a tea bag which had the word "camomile" written on.

Victoria nodded and picked an identical tea bag. She opened the envelope carefully and smelled what was inside it before dumping it into the water. Vincent found himself staring at her during the whole process and it was only when she lifted her gaze on him that he remembered he had to put his own camomile into infusion.

They stood there in silence, waiting for the herbs to soak up the hot water. A clock on the kitchen wall regularly ticked as the minutes passed by and the air above the wooden peninsula was slowly filled with the smell of camomile. Victoria had left her cup seated on the furniture in front of her, as if she was not ready to approach it closely. On the contrary, Vincent held his own firmly in his hands, and the heat from the water slowly conquered the cup and his own skin.

After a few minutes of infusion, he decided it was time to finally take a sip, and so he did, trying to avoid Victoria's eyes that were watching him closely.

-Mmm- he hummed in approval, after swallowing.

Had he exaggerated his reaction to suggest her it was safe to drink that? Well, maybe. And it worked, because after his humming she finally approached her own cup and took a sip herself. While doing it, she closed her eyes, as if she wanted to limit her sensations to taste alone. She held the liquid in her mouth for a few seconds, and when she finally swallowed a smile curled up her lips.

-This feels familiar- she whispered.

Vincent took another sip from his own cup and relaxed a little. He knew that smells, sounds and flavors are powerful memory triggers, and so he had been worried for a while that the memories evoked in her by that beverage could make her feel sad. But she actually looked like she was remembering something pleasant, and he felt glad about it.

-This reminds me of something from my childhood- she confirmed, as if she had been reading his mind -Something I almost had forgotten-.

Vincent abstained from asking directly what was she talking about, and took another sip. He was already halfway through his cup.

Victoria looked on the edge of explaining her words further, but instead she drank again herself and stood silent. Her fingers gently caressed the smooth surface of the cup as if she was holding something very dear to her in her hands.

Vincent found a little disappointing that his curiosity was not going to be satisfied, but he had to admit that Victoria's childhood memories were surely none of his business and, to be completely honest, he was remembering something he had absolutely not intention to share with her too.

His mind was revisiting a faded memory of a pregnant and happy Lucrecia drinking tea from a very similar cup in the Mansion's kitchen. Her round belly visibly protruded from the opened lad coat she always wore, and she looked serene, at least in Vincent's memory, even though dark circles under her eyes revealed that she was already starting to suffer from the treatments she was subjecting her body and her baby to.

-Are you ok?- asked Victoria, breaking into his thoughts as if she had left her handprint on a foggy window.

-Yes- he replied half-heartedly as Lucrecia's image became increasingly blurred and left his mind.

Victoria put her cup in the sink and run water in it. Clearly she had been drinking it all while he was spacing away. Vincent looked inside his own cup, where a little less than half the liquid she had initially poured still waited to be drank. He sighed and drunk it up hastily, to avoid forcing her to wait for him. As she offered her hand to collect his cup and washed that too, he forced himself to think about something that was not Lucrecia. He was not even certain that his memory of her was real and not something forged by his own mind in a dream. After all, so many time had passed since the last time he had actually seen her standing on her own feet in the Mansion…

-Should we go back to bed?- asked Victoria, who had already washed and dried both the cups and the kettle.

Vincent nodded and made himself useful putting the tea box back in the cabinet where she had previously found it.

-Can you hold my hand like before? I'm afraid I'll bump into every piece of furniture of the room if you don't… - she asked while turning off the light.

In the complete darkness of the kitchen, Vincent reached for her and found Victoria's hand quite effortlessly.

-Ok- he whispered -I'm about to open the door.-

Vincent didn't let go of her hand until they arrived in the bedroom and the door was closed behind them. He had previously promised himself to check a clock somewhere around the house but he had forgotten to do it, so they were still unaware of what time was it. It looked still very dark outside, so he guessed it was too early to wake up. Hopefully, they could go to bed and sleep for a few hours more before the whole house would get up.

When he stopped holding her hand, Victoria kept his firmly in hers, silently letting him know she was not ready to break contact yet. Vincent simply stood were he was, waiting for her to do something.

-Thank you for keeping me company- she said, her voice sounding very near to him in the darkness of the room.

-There's no need to thank me- he replied -I think I know how you feel-.

Victoria stood silent, but her fingers caressed the top of his hand for a few moments, and he felt tingles running through his skin. Her touch was so delicate and caring, as if she was cautiously caressing a stray cat. It made him think back of his mother and the way she used to slowly trike his hair after he had cried when he was a little boy. He wondered if someone had ever cuddled Victoria like that, or if she had always been touched only in cold and uncaring ways. His mind automatically thought about Hojo's hands on her and that made him feel sicker than when he remembered having undergone the same treatment. A chill run through his back, and Vincent felt a well known fury raising inside hin.

-What's going on?- she suddenly asked, making him realize something in his body must have involuntarily showed his distress.

-I'm sorry, I was thinking about unpleasant things.- he replied, hoping that could be the end of the conversation.

-Like what?-

Of course she wanted to know. But how could he bring her back to those awful memories when she was trying so hard to shake it off?

-Nothing, just memories of a distant past- he half-lied. After all, his imagination was based on his own experience with the doctor, so what he was picturing about her was pretty much a collection of what he himself had been through.

-Have you ever told someone what he did to you?- Victoria asked, probably guessing what he was thinking about.

Vincent thought that it was very difficult to interact with someone who so accurately red his mind. He swallowed and shook his head.

-Never.- he replied, not sure if that meant that he had never, that he never would, or both.

Victoria didn't comment on that, but he felt her pulling him towards the beds, and followed obediently. When his legs hit the solid shape of a bed, he sad on that, without caring which one of the two he was sitting on. Victoria sat beside him without leaving his hand.

-Would you tell _me_?- she asked in a voice so low that he could barely hear her.

This time it was Vincent's turn to slowly caress her hand. He did it instinctively, without paying much attention to his own actions.

-I'd prefer to keep my nightmares for myself instead of adding mine to yours- he replied, trying to find the words to correctly express his concerns about sharing their stories. He could understand her curiosity very well, because he was curious to know her story probably as much as she was to know his own, but sharing such a burden came with a price.

-So you don't think that sharing our stories would make us feel better?- Victoria asked.

-I don't know- Vincent replied, tracing a circle on her skin with his thumb -But I guess our sleep would become more troubled.-

The truth he could not fully articulate was that he was barely coping with what had happened to him, therefore he was not sure he could endure to know what Hojo had done to her too. He was afraid he would found himself imagining those things every time he would have laid eyes on her, and that she would experience the same in his regards.

We will forever be victims in each other's eyes, he thought, and he was certain he would never allow that to happen. Also, tomorrow you will hate me for what I have done behind your back with your DNA, he said to her in his mind, and all the desire of sharing you are feeling now will surely disappear.

Victoria's fingertips had started to caress his hand again and Vincent felt painfully aware of the suffering he was going to cause her in the morning. He felt tempted to confess right in that moment, but once again he decided not to, hoping to gift her a few hours of sleep before upsetting her with his behavior.

-Shouldn't we go back to sleep?- he suggested. That conversation was starting to become too dangerous for him.

Victoria held his hand tighter.

-I am still so afraid.- she replied. Vincent could hear her voice shake a little and felt tempted to hug her again. Would that make her feel better?

-I'm sorry, you probably think I'm very childish, but I'm so afraid of being alone.- she added, as her caresses started to feel more like scratches on his skin.

-You are not alone- Vincent said, holding her hand tightly to stop the nervous movements she was doing -I'm just here, in the other bed.-

-I know, sorry. But in those dreams I'm so alone, it's just me and… and _him_ -

Being alone with Hojo surely was a terrible experience, dream or reality didn't make a great difference. Vincent was well aware of that truth and he had a lot of memories of himself lying awake with his heart pounding madly to prove that. Thinking about Victoria in the same situation made him feel even worse than remembering having felt like that. Of course she had nightmares linked to her past, but somehow he had never actually imagined her in those situations. Knowing that someone else experienced that pain did not make him feel any better, on the contrary, he suffered for her too. That was a fine example of the fact that telling each other's stories would surely end up in a mess.

-Vincent?- she called -You're… hurting me-

He focused back on reality to find out he was almost squeezing her hand into his own. He let her go immediately and apologized in embarrassment, moving his hand back towards his chest.

Victoria didn't reply to his apology, but her hands grabbed his own, stopping its retreat. She gently pulled it away from his body and back to hers. Before Vincent could protest, he felt something softer than her fingers touch the back of his hand and the low sound of a kiss seemed to fill the room as that touching ended.

-We should stop apologizing for everything we do.- Victoria's voice whispered, and he heard her warm breath on his hand's skin.

-We should go to bed.- he replied, focusing on the fact that the night could not last forever and they needed to sleep before he could go back to apologizing, this time for something which he really felt deeply sorry about.

Victoria kissed his hand once more, and this time Vincent clearly felt a shiver run through his back. He needed her to stop doing that, because that felt too good to be true, and he feared that those gentle kisses would soon turn into bites, which he well deserved to receive considering what he had done to her. He could not let himself get used to being touched like that, because surely it was all about to end soon.

-Can I… sleep here?- Victoria asked in a hesitant voice.

Vincent didn't ask himself the reason of her question. By his calculations, they were probably seated on his bed, and that seemed to be confirmed by the fact that she was asking his permission to sleep there. He didn't understand why, but if she wanted to sleep there he could easily take her bed, or simply lay on the floor, there was no reason why he had to deny her that last courtesy before confessing his sin to her.

-Yes, stay and rest- he replied, getting up from the bed and taking his right hand back from her. He took a couple of steps in the other bed's direction.

-What are you doing?- she asked promptly. She sounded a bit alarmed.

-I'm leaving you the bed, so you can go back to sleep- he replied, feeling a little confused.

There were a few moments of silence before Victoria replied.

-I don't know if I should laugh or cry.- she said, with a voice that sounded equally like the former _and_ the latter.

-Why?- he asked. He was genuinely unaware of what could possibly be going on.

She reached for his body and held the fabric of his shirt in the middle of his back with her hands.

-What I meant was: can I sleep here _with you_?- she explained.

Oh, Vincent though. _Oh_.

He involuntary took a step back, giving in to her pull on his clothes.

-Just to be clear: are you asking if you can sleep in the same bed as me?- he questioned. Surely she couldn't mean that.

-I don't know how to be more straightforward about it.- she replied.

Oh, Vincent thought again.

He felt very stupid, but the eventuality of someone wanting to sleep with him sounded so remote to his brain that he had considered every other possible interpretation of the question more likely to be true. But now, taking into consideration how she had repeatedly said that she was afraid to be alone, that unlikely thing looked suddenly very coherent with the situation.

-I'm sorry, I… I had never been asked something like this before.- Vincent said, trying to excuse his pathetic lack of understanding.

Victoria simply pulled him closer to her and he found himself seated where he was just a few moments before. The extraordinary nature of that question had robbed him of his will.

-So, can I?- she asked again.

Vincent felt two opposite instincts fighting in him.

On one hand, he felt scared and a little uncomfortable thinking about the huge amount of touching that a situation like that implied. His mind was gasping for a solution that would guarantee the least physical contact possible. Sleeping over the blankets while she was under it? Maybe. Putting a pillow between their bodies? Was the bed large enough to allow that? Perhaps facing in opposite directions would guarantee more privacy? But what if one or both of them moved during the night? Vincent was used to be perfectly still, but what about Victoria? And how are you supposed to behave around someone who has slept in your own bed after it happens? Can you behave like nothing has happened? Or rather, was he capable of doing so?

Moreover, was it ethically acceptable to be so intimate with her considering he was about to confess something that surely would make her hate him? The right thing to do was to keep her from doing something that she would probably regret in the morning or to make her feel as safe as he could before giving her the inevitable bad news?

Was he making a fuss about nothing? After all, what importance could have a few hours of sleep?

On the other hand, there was something in him that suggested he should do that.

He recognized the role played by curiosity in that: how would sleeping with someone else feel? So much time had passed since the last time he had done that. He had forgotten the sensation entirely.

Moreover, how would sleeping _with Victoria_ feel? Could it feel as good as hugging her? Would _he_ feel safer? Would _his_ nightmares go away?

And considering what he was about to do in the morning, was that his last occasion to experience something like that? Should he take that opportunity which would probably never ever go back to him?

-Are you ok?- Victoria's voice asked, and Vincent couldn't help but imagine how that voice would sound if she was laying a few inches away from him, with her head on the same pillow as his own.

-Yes, I… are you sure you want to sleep _with me_?-

Victoria laughed. Considering how serious was Vincent about it, it felt refreshing to hear her laughter.

-I hope you won't freak out, but I've wanted to sleep with you since we first met. - she confessed.

I will absolutely freak out, Vincent though.

-That night, when you took me in your arms and brought me away… I've never felt safer before or after. _You_ make me feel safe.- she explained before he could actually start to panic about it.

Vincent was simply astonished. How could she say something so important and intimate with such a clear voice and not a trace of doubt? Was she so sure about him and how he made her feel? And how would that change when he confessed what he had done to her? Was his confession going to be a lot more hurting than he had foreseen?

-Are you freaking out?- she cautiously asked.

-A little.- he replied, incapable of denying it.

She laughed again briefly, and he felt a little more at ease. He liked her laugh.

-I'm sorry if this sounds crazy, but this is how I feel. When you are with me, I feel safe and calm. When you aren't, well… I've been freaking out all day long because you wouldn't talk to me or stay in the same room as I was.- she confessed.

Was that true? Was she really so fond of him and so dependant on his benevolence? Was his mere presence a condition to her happiness? How could that be possible?

-I'm sorry, I had no idea you were feeling like this… - he said, still trying to process what she had said.

-Oh, please, stop being sorry for everything and just tell me: can we sleep together? I promise I won't bother you, I won't jump on you or anything! I'll just lay beside you, we don't have to touch, just being near you would make me feel so much better!-

She sounded like she was losing her patience. Vincent felt he would have preferred to be able to see her face and look her in the eye. It felt quite strange to discuss something like that without being able to read each other's body language.

He considered once again his position and the possibility to kindly refuse. It all sounded so strange to him that he couldn't really cope with Victoria's request nor her relative explanation.

However, he was undoubtedly very curious to see where that could go. And that could really be the last chance to give it a try.

-Well, if you think it will make you feel better, then… - he replied.

He couldn't even finish the sentence. He was still talking when Victoria hugged him and started thanking him repeatedly. She really sounded very happy about that agreement. Vincent wondered if she was putting to much power into his hands. What if the nightmares came back despite that new sleeping arrangement? Was he going to fail at something he surely didn't know how to do?

-So, how do we…?- he asked, still trying to figure out the practical aspects of the new arrangement.

-I suppose we start laying under the blankets- she replied, and he heard the sound of said blankets being pulled aside.

-Maybe we should turn on the light as long as we settle- he suggested, worrying about the possibility that they could accidentally hurt each other.

-We can, but are you sure that won't freak you out even more?- she asked.

It absolutely will, Vincent thought. It really was surprising how she sometimes understood his mindsets better than him.

-Let's not complicate what could be easy- she said, patting on his arm with surprising accuracy -If you stand up for a few moments, I'll lay on the right side of the bed. When I tell you, you can lay on the left-

She sounded pretty sure of herself, and Vincent was happy to follow her instructions. He got up and waited for her to settle, then he laid on the bed when she said he could.

Once he was completely laid, Victoria pulled back the blankets onto their bodies.

Vincent considered his situation. He was laid on his back. The bed under him felt warm, probably because they had been sitting on that side for a while. He knew that she was very close to him, but he had somehow managed to avoid making direct contact with her by keeping his body on the very edge of the mattress, letting his left arm fall down against the floor. He was not very comfortable, nor unbearably uncomfortable. He could probably bring himself to sleep for a while in that position, but even if he had to stay awake until morning, he could easily endure that. He didn't understand how Victoria could feel safer in that situation, but if she was happy, he was willing to try.

-There's plenty of space here, if you want to get more comfortable- her voice said, and she sounded so near to his right ear that Vincent almost got startled.

-I'm fine, thank you- he replied, hoping his voice wouldn't reveal his uneasiness.

-Please, I don't want you to be uncomfortable or to feel awkward. If this doesn't work for you, say it and I'll go back to my bed. I'm staying only as long as you want me to.- she clarified.

What she said made Vincent consider the situation under a new light. Did he really want her to stay or was he just trying to be patient and kind because she was traumatized? Was he forcing himself to do something he actually didn't want to do?

This was definitely what he had felt like the first night that they met: forced by the events to perform actions he didn't want to take any part in. But that was a combat-like situation: when someone is injured on the battlefield, you can't ask yourself if you'd prefer to avoid touching them. You simply do what is right: you take care of them even if you don't like doing it.

However, since she had become part of his life, things had slowly changed. Yes, he was still uncomfortable touching people and he would not touch her unless he felt it was somehow needed, mostly to calm her down when she was in distress or to guide her across the house in the darkness, like he had done earlier that night.

If Victoria hadn't kept needing his attention, probably he would have never touched her again. But she had, and he had too. And that situation had made him become quite accustomed to her. Touching her didn't feel strange or unpleasant anymore, his body had rapidly started to feel less bad and then surprisingly more good about it.

So, would he ever sleep in the same bed as her if she had not asked him? Probably not.

Was he a little uncomfortable and unsure about how to deal with this new situation? Sure.

Was he forcing himself to endure something painful and unwanted? No.

He was curious and intrigued by what could feel like to share such an intimate space with someone, and with her in particular. She seemed so sure that sleeping near him could make her nightmares go away, that he wondered if his own bad dreams could stop if she was there.

Vincent suddenly felt a new and strange sensation: rationally speaking, he expected himself to react in a certain way, but now that he was in the actual situation, he simply was not. He felt different from what he had always thought, and that was surely knew for someone who had been very similar to his expectations for a very long time.

It was a little scary, but also felt full of possibilities.

-Vincent? Are you ok?- Victoria's voice asked while he felt a hand delicately touching his arm.

He hummed in reply, still distracted by his thoughts.

-Are you freaking out again?- she questioned, and in her voice he could hear the trace of a laugh.

-I'm just thinking- Vincent replied.

She had involuntary proved his point by touching his arm. Ten days before, he would have really freaked out for something like that. But now, he had already become so familiar with Victoria's hands that what he felt when she touched him was not uneasiness or distress. He felt rather good, instead.

-Vincent?- she called again, making him realize he was spacing out.

-Don't worry, I think I will be fine.- he said, and he himself felt surprised by the sound of those words in his mouth.

Victoria's hand briefly caress his bicep, and then moved away from him.

-Come closer- she whispered -I won't have you fall down from the bed-

He briefly considered the situation once more, and then he actually moved a couple of inches towards the center of the bed.

-I won't fall down- he said -What about you? Are you comfortable?-

She hummed in response, and he felt her shifting her position a little.

-I'm fine- she whispered, with a voice that suddenly sounded a bit sleepy.

Was she really so relaxed by his presence that she was going from completely awake to asleep so fastly?

-Wake me up if something's wrong- Vincent said.

She hummed again briefly. Her breath was already deep and regular, as it usually is when someone is sleeping.

Vincent looked in her direction, but the room was still too dark to see anything. However, he felt her warm breath gently blowing on his cheeks as she exhaled, which made him guess that she was facing in his direction too.

He turned his head back to face the ceiling and slowly took a deep breath.

Sleep well, Victoria.

He thought.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

A distant noise woke Vincent up. He half-opened his eyes to see that the room was filled with sunlight. The second thing he noticed was that his clothes felt quite humid against his skin, as if he had been sweating a lot, which was very unusual of him. Then something moved on his chest, and he was abruptly brought back to reality.

What had just moved onto him was Victoria's right hand, which was casually placed right onto his pectorals. Her palm was laid on his pajamas' cloth, and the thin fingers were a little bent, as if she was grabbing something invisible and holding it into her grasp. It felt very warm on his skin, even with the shirt shielding him from direct contact.

Vincent was still laying on his back, in the very same position he had fallen asleep into the night before. Victoria, on the other hand, was no more safely detached from him like she had been. On the contrary, she was now sleeping on her left side, leaning onto the right part of Vincent's body. Not only her hand was on his chest, but her right leg was bent over his own, clinging to it like an ivy branch growing on a tree. And, since she was way shorter than him, her knee was dangerously placed in the proximity of his groin.

Victoria's head rested on the pillow only a couple of inches away from his right ear, so close that he guessed he couldn't properly turn in her direction without ending up touching her face with his nose.

Vincent's first reaction to finding himself in that situation was, of course, panic. His heart rapidly accelerated its beat and his breath automatically got faster and shorter. What if she woke up like that? What if someone entered the room and found them laying in the bed together? Could he possibly slip away without waking her up? No, he couldn't. Victoria was hanging onto him like ivy on a tree, there was no way he could somehow slip away without waking her up. He had to endure it, hoping that his deafening heartbeat didn't wake her up.

Therefore he stood there, focusing on laying perfectly still. Eventually, as time passed by and nothing happened, he slowly started to calm down. Victoria didn't give any sign of an immediate awakening, the door remained closed and Vincent, contrary to what he himself had guessed, could not continue to be anxious forever. His heart got gradually back to his usual beating speed and his breathing rhythm eventually slowed down. Since she was unconscious, he discovered he could contain his worries and reach a state of tranquillity.

After a while, he even dared to bend his head as much as he could into her direction, and finally looked at her closely. He had never watched her from so close, and suddenly he realized that he was finally free to stare at her as long as he wanted, checking every detail of a face that, despite having become increasingly present in his life, was still quite unknown to him. Trying to bury the awkwardness he felt for being so indiscreet, Vincent finally let his eyes wander freely onto her face.

The first thing he noted were her lashes, which were blackish and looked thick, long and curved as he had previously noted. Not so far away from them, her eyebrows were significantly lighter in colour, and arched on her forehead in a slightly asymmetrical way, the left one being a bit higher than the right one. Her nose was small and just a little pointy at the end, surrounded by a few freckles that were only a couple of shades darker than her skin colour and could not be easily noted if not up close. He also saw an old scar on her right cheek, which was a few millimeters wide and not longer than an inch, and wondered how and when she had cut herself there. Her eyes were obviously closed, but he discovered he now had memorized their colour so well that his mind could recall it with no effort at all.

Just a little lower, Victoria's lips looked full and dark pink coloured. She had a little mole on the right of the arch in the middle of her upper lip, and Vincent felt his own cheeks turn hotter by the intimacy of the details he was spying on. The fact that when she exhaled her warm breath blew on his neck through her opened mouth did not make him feel more at ease. He also noticed that a little trail of saliva escaped from her mouth and he found that incoherently both a little gross and kind of cute.

Victoria's face looked fuller and rounder than he had thought the first time he had seen her sleep, on her first morning there. Maybe she was finally starting to put on a little bit of healthy body fat. It seemed that Hojo had not bothered to feed her properly, which looked like a contradiction to Vincent. If the scientist's goal was to make her pregnant, wasn't just common sense that her body should be as healthy as it could? Vincent knew nothing of pregnancies, but he had always guessed that the better the mother's health, the more the chances to bring the pregnancy to term without troubles.

A sudden thought struck Vincent's mind. Could Victoria be already pregnant? Of course she didn't look like it, but she could be in the early months and how would he know what a pregnant woman looks like anyway? Of course he had been there when Lucrecia was expecting Sephiroth, and at some point the belly does get so big that anyone can notice it, but before that happens there are a few (how many?) months when everything looks exactly the same from outside and maybe only the woman knows. Or perhaps she doesn't. And if she was Hojo's biological daughter, as they suspected, who was she pregnant of? Was there a man who had willingly taken part in Hojo's experiments or had the scientist used someone's semen without the man knowing it?

Vincent's right hand was trapped by her body somewhere in the proximity of her belly. If he moved slightly his fingers to the right, could he touch her? And if so, could he make sure of anything?

As he was considering that, Victoria frowned a little in her sleep, and he forgot entirely about Hojo and the possibility of her being pregnant. Was she having a bad dream, after all? He could see her eyes moving in different directions under the eyelids, so she was probably dreaming. But dreaming of what? Had his presence kept her bad memories away from her dreams, as she had hoped? Or was she having nightmares again despite being so close to him? He had not believed for a single moment that his closeness could shield her from nightmares, but now that she appeared to be imprisoned in one of those bad dreams he wished his presence could somehow help her.

When Victoria finally stopped frowning, Vincent's body naturally relaxed in response. He hadn't noticed how he had been contracting some of his muscles until that moment. He took a deep breath, and watched closely while Victoria's hand raised and dropped back following the movements of his chest. It was fascinating to see someone else's body and his own coexist in the same space in such a natural way.

I could get used to this, he thought, imagining a future when he would wake up everyday finding Victoria still asleep in his own bed. It was so tempting to give up all the troubles and worries about the rest of the world and just focus on a simple thing such as that one, to contemplate only her and the way she moved while sleeping almost on top of him. Why should he worry about Hojo's plans when he could study how Victoria's fingers gently bent on his chest?

Why care about the rest of the world, about the possibility that she could be Hojo's and Lucrecia's daughter or the fact that her very existence could mean that something wicked and dangerous was going on behind everyone's back? Why focus on the fact that her real name was not actually Victoria, and that he would probably never know what it was? She looked so serene and vulnerable in her sleep, Vincent only wished to shield her from any harm and keep on experiencing the wonders and mysteries of having someone so close to him and catch up with all that he had lost in those long years of solitude.

He would have easily traded decades of loneliness in a coffin for minutes of companionship in that bed. It was barely big enough for the two of them, but it felt like the most comfortable place in the world to him. How many nightmares would have dared to hunt him while Victoria's arms shielded him? That innocent warrior laying by his side somehow looked like she could easily stop the world from falling into pieces. Maybe she could hold him together as well.

Then he remembered. The call he was waiting from Reeve, the glass in which she had drunk and that he had given to the WRO's president so that their laboratories could check her DNA. He imagined her arched eyebrows frowning because of him, and the hand that was now gently laid onto his chest slapping him hard in the face. Would Victoria be so angry as to hit him? Vincent didn't know, but he would have surely liked to slap himself for the shortsightedness of his actions. He was undeserving of her trust, and she would find out exactly how much very soon, as soon as she woke up. He suddenly felt unbearably spiteful for daydreaming about sharing her bed while she was unaware of how much pain he had caused her. How selfish of his to think about the happiness he could obtain from her while cautiously avoiding to let her know what a despicable piece of shit he had been to her. He didn't remotely deserve to be caressed by that hand who was innocently placed onto his chest. For a few moments, he acutely wished that Victoria would be so kind to slap him in the face, because he surely had earned that and more.

However, despite Vincent's mixture of fear and impatience to see her waking up, Victoria kept on sleeping as if nothing could bother her in the whole world, and he consequently lost again the train of his regretful thoughts to focus back on how her landscape changed as she dreamed. Sometimes she hummed or made indistinguishable noises, sometimes she laid perfectly still and silent. Completely distracted by the changes in her behavior, Vincent end up wondering how did he look like when he was asleep. Did he make all those different expressions? Did he produce noises or even talk? Did he look so helpless and natural? Was everyone else similar to her? And what about him? Was _he_ similar to her?

He didn't realize how his eyelids slowly grew heavier and heavier onto his eyes, nor how his breath slowed down and his thoughts became less coherent and more random.

When he finally fell asleep again, it happened slowly and without him noticing.

He woke up abruptly when Victoria's body finally moved, incapable of telling if only a few seconds or hours had passed since he was previously conscious. Victoria's face rubbed onto his right shoulder, and her hand suddenly left his chest. He fought the instinct to look back onto her, reminding himself that she was now perfectly capable of seeing him, but he couldn't completely resist and dared to gaze at her rapidly with the corner of his eye.

At first, she politely put her hand in front of her mouth as she yawned, and then she finally looked at him with a very surprised expression, catching his gaze without effort.

-Oh…- she said, looking around at the room and at how they were laying. She blushed and slowing removed her leg from onto his own. She did that very carefully, avoiding to rub against him.

Vincent, trying to shake away the uneasiness that had taken him prisoner has soon as he had realized that she was conscious, looked away from her, trying to ignore how his face and ears suddenly felt significantly hotter than usual.

-I'm sorry.- she said, moving completely away from him and leaving a cold sensation on the areas of his body where her own had been generously sharing her warmth.

-Don't be.- he replied, shaking his right arm and leg a little now that those were free from her weight.

Victoria's I-just-woke-up voice was a bit coarse and sounded way lower than the usual. He liked it. _Too much_.

As she sat on the bed just a few inches away from him, Vincent took note of how she carefully pulled her nightgown back down on her legs and felt very glad that he had not previously noticed how up it must have gone during the night. That would have made him _really_ uncomfortable.

-Did you sleep well?- she asked, facing away from him. He realized that she was ashamed of something, probably of how much she had been clinging onto him during her sleep, and this produced a warm and unexplainable sensation of happiness inside him. Not being the only one feeling awkward in the room was a pleasing experience.

He pulled up and sat beside her, removing several locks of hair from his face. His body was a bit colder now and his right arm, that had been imprisoned between their bodies for hours, felt tingly and slow in responding to his commands.

-Yes, actually. No nightmares for me.- he replied, hoping to cheer her up.

It was not a lie. He had really slept very well, without a single glimpse of Hojo or his past to hunt him. And it worked: Victoria turned her face back and looked at him with a delighted expression. She smiled, even.

-Now that I think about it, no nightmares for me either!- she exclaimed. She looked like a child who has just been told that school is canceled for the day. She also appeared triumphant, as if she was thinking "I told you it would work!" and was just too modest to freely say that out loud.

Seeing her so happy made Vincent's pain significantly more acute. He had the duty to turn that happiness into anger and sorrow and he could no longer delay that moment.

He looked at her smiling face for what he feared would be the last time and took a deep breath.

-There's something that I need to tell you- he said, taking time to summon the courage to actually do it.

Victoria looked at him with curiosity in her eyes. She was still happy.

-Yes?- she replied.

When had she become so eager to interact? How had she turned into this, leaving behind the Victoria of just a few days before, who was so traumatized and weak that wouldn't talk at all? Who was this amazing woman who dared to smile openly to his face and hug him in her sleep?

Who are you, Vincent thought, and how could I be such a fool as to ruin my chances to discover that?

He noticed that she had a reddish mark on her cheek left by the pillow and painfully felt that he had come so close to a level of intimacy that would allow him to point that out to her and maybe make her laugh, but right there he was about to lose that forever.

-I… - he tried to say, before the reality of what he was losing could make him change his mind.

Despite having rehearsed that conversation in his mind a thousand times, he had troubles finding the right words to confess his sin. He could only think that every second he delayed that moment was a second more of Victoria looking at him with benevolent curiosity.

-You?- Victoria asked after a while.

Her voice sounding a little impatient, but still very trusting.

He was the man who had saved her from Hojo. She trusted him probably more than anyone in the world. Vincent's hand shook. The enormity of his mistake felt unbearable.

-I've done something which is wrong and that I now regret very much doing. I had my reasons but… Those reasons are not enough to justify what I did.- he said.

He was still trying to buy himself some time, even if there was no reason to do that. Victoria's eyebrows frowned in confusion and Vincent looked away from her, incapable of bearing the way her eyes were about to look at him.

-Vincent, you're scaring me.- she said, placing a hand over his right arm.

That gesture was surely meant to comfort him, but it made him feel even worse. And the very way her voice had pronounced his name sounded like a caress which he felt very undeserving of. He thought about her slapping him again. Oh, if only she could do that!

-We… We need to know what's going on… - he muttered - And you… you're the only clue that we have… -

-What are you talking about?- Victoria's voice asked. Now she sounded really alarmed. Her grip on his arm got tighter. She was starting to get scared.

Vincent swallowed a metaphorically bitter bite and tried to summon his courage back. He could not delay the confession further, nor he could do it without looking her in the eyes. He owed her that.

When he finally left up his gaze and met her own, Victoria's big eyes looked to him like the scariest thing he had ever seen in his life.

-I used the glass in which you drank the other day to collect your DNA and I gave it to Reeve, for the purpose of having it tested and discovering who and… _what_ you are.-

He had shot those words out like his Cerberus shot her bullets. And as he forced himself to keep on matching her gaze, the reality of what he had said sunk into her just like bullets do: quickly and with an escalation of pain. Vincent had been shot by Hojo many many years before, but he still remembered quite well how it feels and he saw Victoria react in the same way.

The first thing that happens is painless surprise, because the brain needs time to figure out what has just happened and believe that it really has. And Victoria looked surprised indeed. Then, the nerves send the pain back to the brain, and that's when it all becomes real: you understand what has happened to you and start to _feel_ it too. He remembered how the body tenses, trying so hard to contain the pain and the damages done by the bullet. And he saw her body become more tense and her lips tighten so much that they started to whiten. The grip on his arm got so tight that he felt her nails across the cloth of his shirt.

At this point, the mind has understood what has happened, but it still doesn't know what to do with it. All those years before, Vincent's mind had been so scared and incredulous that he had simply lost his senses. Now, Victoria looked frozen like a statue. She was probably trying to digest the information and decide what to do with it. He didn't know he well enough to guess anything more.

Vincent felt the impossible urge to both hug her and somehow explain what he had done, whilst apologizing until the end of all days, but instead of doing any of that he froze too, waiting for what felt like a incoming death sentence.

All the reasons why he had decided to do what he had done kept tangling in his mind and were crushed before one unbearable big truth. He had treated her like Hojo had done before him: not like a human being who is and should be considered in charge of her own life, but like a lab rat who doesn't even have the right to know what is being done to her, let alone express her consent to it.

He had treated her like a child, who is by default considered to be incapable of facing reality and making decisions for herself. Reeve and him had decided that it would have been too much traumatic for her to know what they were doing, but that it was necessary and better to do it anyway. _Without_ her consent.

How arrogant and blind of them.

When she finally closed her eyes, a single tear escaped from her left one. She didn't sob or change expression in any way. She just stood immobilized while that heavy drop of liquid crossed her pale cheek and dropped on her chest, forming a circle of darker colour on the cloth of the nightgown on her breast.

-Is this the reason why I am still here?- she asked suddenly, with a voice so low that Vincent considered the possibility of having only imagined those words.

She was now looking at him once again, and her eyes seemed to have no more tears to cry.

-No, I… -

-Why, then?- Victoria interrupted him _-Why_ am I still here?-

Vincent swallowed again.

Don't leave me, he thought. He didn't care how or why, he just didn't want her to leave him alone.

-Because… you need to…? Or… you want to?- he said instead, hoping that somehow she still needed or wanted to be there and his words could remind her that. He wasn't sure about anything anymore.

She lowered her gaze away from his face and looked in his hands' direction instead. After a few seconds, she turned away from him, and got up from the bed in a fluid movement. Her nightgown fell naturally on her hips and legs in a way that Vincent found somehow very meaningful.

She turned back to face him across the bed, which now looked painfully empty without her body inside it.

-Then, can I leave whenever I want?- she asked. Her face looked completely emotionless.

-Of course, but...- he replied, hoping to find a good reason to convince her to stay.

-Goodbye then.- she said, cutting away whatever he was trying to say.

Then she turned her back to him and walked through the room in the door's direction, without adding anything else.

Vincent desperately searched for words that could prolong her permanence in the room as long as it was needed to somehow fix what had happened, but his mouth stood there in silence.

When Victoria opened the door, the noises from the rest of the house, which until that moment had been a muffled background, suddenly became louder.

She hesitated for a brief moment, without looking back. Her left hand caressed the wooden wamb in what was probably an unconscious she took a step out of the room and, before Vincent could accept the reality of what was happening in front of him, the door closed behind her back leaving him alone.

Vincent stood still, looking intensely at the door as if that could make her open it and come back. As if that had all been some kind of joke, or if she had just gone to the bathroom for a while.

But, of course, the door stood perfectly closed, and when Vincent's sight started to become blurry for the intensity of his staring, he closed his eyes and let himself fall back on the bed.

As his head hit the pillow, a wave of Victoria's smell surrounded him. He gritted his teeth in an expression of pain.

Please, let me die _now_ , he thought.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 alt

Vincent sunk into a state of numbness. He had experienced that feeling before, therefore he could easily recognize it when it came. He had spent years and years closed in his coffin feeling exactly like that, as if his body was heavier than a mountain and his mind was at the bottom of the ocean, slowed down and separated from everything.

No reason to move, no reason to live. He felt like a wooden piece of something washed upon a lonely shore after a storm. Broken and dead.

However, what he found surprising about the whole situation was that at some point he had clearly stopped feeling like that, and he hadn't even noticed that until the moment when the whole thing had come back to him. It had been like being struck by lightning. He had not really understood how much the presence of Victoria in his life had silently woken up a lot of instincts that had somehow survived his long sleep. The hope to be loved or at least cared for, the need to be approved and cherished. All those things that he had thought had abandoned him forever after losing Lucrecia had somehow sneaked back into him. He didn't know if it was because of his friendship with the Avalanche or because of Victoria's need to be taken care of, but those human emotions had gone back to him without him noticing. And now he felt like losing everything all over again.

He was ashamed of what he had done to her in a way that felt painfully physical, like a heavy weight on his chest that wouldn't go away. And he was ashamed that his friends would know how stupid and selfish he had been and how the absolute trust they had put into him had been tragically misplaced. He just wanted to disappear.

He sunk into the same bad he had shared with Victoria and that still smelled like her and waited for everything and nothing to happen. What he wanted to do the most was to be back into his coffin but it was so far away and his body wouldn't even consider going out of that room. Chaos, who could easily plug him off from consciousness for a while and maybe move him away from the presence of the people who were so fool as to love him, had conveniently decided not to show himself. Vincent had never wished to be taken over be the demon before, but right now he hated to be himself so much that literally everything, including being Chaos, felt really tempting.

As he remembered quite well, in this state the very passing of time felt unbearably slow. Hours passed as he laid still under the blankets, feeling something like vomit at the mouth of his stomach. His mind kept revisiting the way Victoria's eyes had looked at him after, and the way her body had become more tense under the impact of his words. Victoria, whose name was not even Victoria, and who was now lost forever to him. He felt like crying but his eyes seemed to be dry as the desert around the city of Edge. The pillow in which he buried his face smelled painfully like her, and Vincent found out that he had come to cherish that smell, to find it familiar.

If only time could be reversed to a week before that, where he was still so barricaded into his own mind and considered her little more than a nuisance to be rid of as fast as he could. If only Cloud had been there instead of him, to save her and to welcome her into the Avalanche's heart where lived people who knew how to be friendly and kind and how to love a stranger and treat her with respect and dignity. If only he had been someone else, someone better. If only so many things had been different from what they were.

Buried in this kind of thoughts, Vincent didn't notice that it had started to rain heavily until suddenly the door to his room was opened and Tifa showed herself. She walked in with a certain insecurity in her pace which was very uncommon for her, as if she was venturing in an uncharted territory and she wasn't entirely sure of what she was doing. She closed the door behind her back and opened the window instead, letting the sound and the smell of the pouring rain invade the room.

Vincent had no idea which time it was or how many hours had passed since Victoria had left him alone, nor he could guess it from the sky because of the stormy clouds. As a wave of the rain's smell crushed onto him, he involuntarily noticed that is was very similar to the one he remembered from his youth. That was probably a good sign, the rain had smelled strange for a long time after the Meteor's incident.

Tifa looked around into the emptiness of the room and grabbed a chair to sit on. After so many hours alone, Vincent couldn't help himself but to look at her and notice how, on the contrary, she seemed very determined not to gaze into his direction. She sat composed on the chair laying her hands onto her legs, with a nervousness in her fingers that made Vincent feel the worst living creature on Gaia. She was a sweet and passionate woman who had been through a lot of traumas and tragedies in her life and now her mind was unnecessarily troubled because of him and his foolishness.

-How are you feeling?- she asked, still looking everywhere but at him.

Vincent exhaled. He could not say anything more coherent than that sound.

-Cid was very eager to come here and talk to you, but I suggested he should wait and calm down a bit before doing it. I guessed you were already feeling quite bad, even without someone screaming at you.- Tifa said.

He stood silent. He wanted to ask about Victoria, to know if she was still there and if they were taking care of her, but he couldn't. It seemed unfair to even talk about her, and his mouth seemed incapable of talking at all.

-She has told us what's happened- said Tifa, and Vincent felt painfully grateful to her for having used those words. The way she had described the situation somehow drove the attention away from the fact that, rather than simply happening, it was him who had deribelatly done something bad.

-At first, I couldn't believe it- she confessed, tormenting the cloth of her trousers with her nails -But Cloud has phoned Reeve.-

Vincent imagined Cloud making that phone call and discovering what he had done. He felt himself sinking deeper into shame.

-There's no point in sugar coating it, Vincent. You have made a mistake, a huge mistake. I think I know why you chose to behave like that and I can almost understand your reasons, but you did wrong nonetheless.-

Even without her looking at him, Tifa's eyes were even more eloquent than her words. She was clearly trying very hard to stay calm and avoid showing her distress.

Vincent felt both grateful for her concern and sorry that she was not letting her inner storm rage unto him. He deserved that, and being treated with kindness made him feel even worse.

He breathe against the pillow and found out that Victoria's smell had finally disappeared completely. It now smelled only like him, and Vincent found it unbearable. He wished very strongly to be separated from himself once again.

-What are you going to do now?- Tifa asked.

Vincent closed his eyes.

-I… have to go… - he said, his voice struggling to be heard.

-You mustn't do that!- she replied in a very passionate way. Suddenly her eyes were very firmly focused on him and, as her frowning eyebrow declared, she was not satisfied of his response.

-If you go away, things'll stay like they are now, and they are a fucking mess, you know?- she said. Vincent took the swearing as a sign that she was losing her ability to be calm.

-I'm sick and tired of people running away from troubles, especially when we all have so many mess in our lives that we can't control! Life's enough complicated as it is, don't you wish to fix what you have done while you still can?-

-Can I?- asked Vincent. It was not a rhetorical question. He really wanted to know.

Tifa took a deep breath that seemed to restore at least part of her previously calm attitude. She crossed her arms onto her chest, in a gesture that Vincent didn't know how to read. Her legs were crossed too, and her right foot swayed up and down rhythmically into the air.

-You can always try.- she said -And see if something different happens, for once. If you run away, surely it won't fix anything.-

Tifa's words made Vincent remember a brief conversation he had shared with Cloud a couple of years before, during the Remnants incident. In that occasion, the blonde hero had promised him to try and see if sins could be forgiven, and to let Vincent know what he would find out about it. Tifa had not been there in that moment, but somehow Vincent felt that her words were the fulfillment of Cloud's promise.

Can sins be forgiven? Well, not if you don't even try to ask for forgiveness in the first place.

-Why do you all keep thinking that shutting everyone out and leaving is a good idea? Have we not already discovered that being together makes us stronger? That we can face everything as long as we fight side by side?- Tifa continued, and Vincent realized that she was talking about Cloud as much as about him. Two years before, when Cloud had contracted the Geostigma, Vincent had been in one of those periods when he just felt detached from everyone. He had not noticed something that was now very clear: Cloud's reaction - leaving home to find shelter in Aerith's old church and avoiding answering the phone - had not pleased Tifa at all.

-But she…- he tried to say, finding out he was incapable to put his tangled thoughts into words. Yes, Cloud had probably made a mistake in walking away from Tifa, who cared for him and had felt betrayed by the absence of her childhood friend and comrade. But wasn't that a very different situation from his own considering that Victoria had meet Vincent only a few days before and had just discovered that he had invaded her privacy in an unjustifiable way? She had walked away from him in the first place, so what was wrong about assuming that removing himself from her life was a good idea and something that she wanted too?

Tifa shook her head and locks of her dark hair fell gracefully on her shoulders.

-She's so lonely and afraid, and she just wants to belong, to be part of a family. She needs that, and you represent something like that to her. Do you honestly think I've not seen how you looked at her these past days and the way she looked at you too?-

Vincent was overwhelmed by shame and sadness, but some part of his brain wondered how exactly they had been looking at each other. However, he dared not ask.

Tifa snorted, but an involuntary smile finally appeared on her face.

-Don't you know that people can forgive each other, if they want to?-

Tifa was one of those people who always speak honestly and passionately. It was very easy to believe anything she said because she so clearly believed it in the first place. But her words about Victoria sounded so optimistic that Vincent's mind naturally resisted the temptation to believe her. How could she be so sure that Victoria wanted to forgive him? After all, Victoria was a stranger to anyone, they could not judge her by any past evidence. Unless…

-Did she tell you that?- Vincent asked, trying to contain the anxiety he felt about that possibility.

Tifa smiled in a very enigmatic way, which was quite uncommon for her.

-Of course you can't expect me to reveal what others say to me privately, Vincent.- she replied.

He felt the sudden urge to get up and run down the stairs. If Victoria had said that she wanted to forgive him, there was not another moment to waste!

He resisted that instinct only because he remembered he was still in his pajamas and probably looking like a rag. Surely he couldn't meet her like that. However, he sat on the bed and Tifa smiled again in approval.

-Listen to me, Vincent.- she said, catching his attention who was already going in all sorts of different directions, imagining what to say to Victoria and how she would react -What I have told you is not that you'll surely or easily be forgiven. What you and Reeve have done is something very wrong, it's not something you can simply laugh about in a few days. My guess is that she will eventually forgive you, but you'll have to earn it. I want you to understand that what I said is that you need to have hope for forgiveness and use that hope to work your way through it, not that you already are forgiven.-

His enthusiasm inevitably calmed down. Tifa was absolutely right. But hope was a very precious and rare thing to be found, and he felt that hope alone could make the difference between going back to his coffin and trying to live. Hoping to be forgiven was already much better than utter despair. Hoping was actually all that he could afford at the moment, and Vincent decided to embrace that and make something out of it.

After one of the fastest and more accurate shower of his life, Vincent put back his usual attire. The cloak felt unusually heavy on his shoulders, and maybe it was a little strange to wear something like that inside a house but he figured out it was way too late to worry about looking strange. Those were the only clothes he actually felt comfortable in, and the gods knew he needed to face what was coming with some extra confidence.

The storm was still raging outside, and the waves of rain that the wind sent against the windows didn't exactly help him stay calm, but Vincent felt shivers of anticipation. It was a bit overwhelming to suddenly feel all those dynamic emotions after having sunk into a deep pond of numbness for hours, but he had to manage. How could Victoria ever forgive him if he left her to go back to his prison?

He walked down the stairs slowly, forcing himself not to run. His armored shoes made a familiar noise on the steps, and he felt a bit reassured by that. It was good to find a little familiar thing in the midst of a very unknown situation.

He was still unsure about how he should behave in the presence of Victoria. Tifa's words had been encouraging, but he was still not used to deal with that kind of things. Also, he was worried that she would not be ready to see him, and he didn't want to impose his presence on her and cause more harm.

At the same time, he felt compelled to see her. After all those days spent together, being without her suddenly felt very weird. And as much as he had been uncomfortable in her presence, now he felt uncomfortably lonely without her in the room. Of course he had no right to be with her simply because he felt like that, especially since she was surely feeling justly hurt by his actions. His mind was very sure of all that, but his body was going down the stairs nonetheless, searching for the very person who he was doubting he should have stayed away from.

It was an uncommon feeling for him, the longing for someone's presence. It had been such a long time since he had felt like that, and the exceptional quality of that feeling somehow made it more difficult to avoid acting accordingly. He was no more used to contrast his wanting for other people, because he had not wanted to be with others for years and years.

At the bottom of the staircase, Vincent immediately found the very object of his worries. Victoria was sitting on a stool in the 7th Heaven's main room. Alone.

There was no sign of other people around, and Vincent froze on the last step, unsure of what to do or say. At the same time, he watched her carefully. His eyes seemed to be somehow very hungry for her sight.

Victoria couldn't see him, because she was seated facing in the opposite direction. His eyes followed the curve of her spine from her lower back to her neck, and focused on how she held her head into her hands, with both her elbows firmly placed on the bar counter. She was wearing something that Vincent had never seen before: a black dress that was clearly too long and too big for her thin body, which left her left shoulder undressed and dangled over her legs like a curtain. He guessed it must have been Tifa's and thought that Victoria needed to go out and buy something for herself. She could not go on borrowing wrong-sized clothes forever. That dress looked so big that he feared it would fall to the floor if only she stood on her feet.

He couldn't see her face, but the whole posture of her body made her look like the survivor of a shipwreck. She gave a sense of loss and exhaustion which torn his heart into pieces. How could he hurt someone who had been through such torture and pain? At the same time, there was a solidity in her body that surprised him. She didn't look like a piece of junk like he surely had in their bed. There was dignity in her posture. She was a warrior and a survivor even then.

 _Their_ bed. That was how he had referred in his thoughts to what had previously been his own bed. Victoria had very easily conquered that place and claimed it has her own even in his mind. She was not a harmless puppy he had rescued on the street. She was…

She moved a hand over her face and, still frozen where he was, Vincent suddenly found out he could not move. He was too afraid to be rejected by her, which was the more obvious outcome of that situation. Now that he had embraced hope for forgiveness, what if talking to her only made things worse? What if she rejected him? Victoria was surely mad at him and she could not possibly be happy to see him, and he couldn't endure to know exactly how much she hated him. Another long past rejection came back to his mind, and his heart ache at the remembrance. Could he survive another rejection? Could he endure the angry look of those eyes that had previously gazed unto him in adoration?

But no. Victoria was not Lucrecia, he was not the same young man he had been thirty years before and this was a completely different situation. But still…

It had all been a mistake, and a terrible one. Not only going down the staircase, but all of what had happened since they had met in the Mansion. Of course, he could have not simply ignored someone who desperately needed his help, but staying at Cloud and Tifa's house a minute longer after bringing her in had been the beginning of a disaster which he couldn't now possibly escape from. That girl, who just days before had been so fragile and barely alive in his arms, now had the power to crush him once and for all.

Vincent was terrified of her, but at the same time he felt almost tempted. He already had so little to lose that perhaps losing even that little he had left could be a liberation, like the final blow in a fight to the death. Maybe he would have finally stopped caring about other people and himself. He almost wished for her to hate him and destroy his last sprinkle of hope. If he could not obtain redemption for his sins, maybe he could sink so deeply into them and disappear completely. Could he let go of everything and let Chaos reign over his body and mind? Could Victoria say the words that would finally put an end to his misery? Would she be so kind to finally inflict the fatal wound to end his existence?

He involuntarily took a step towards her and probably revealed himself with the sound of that step, because Victoria turned back to look at him at once. Her eyes were swollen and reddish and Vincent felt an acute pain somewhere in his heart. Not only because she had clearly been crying for quite some time, but also because as soon as he met those eyes all his delirious ideas about abandoning himself to Chaos and death were swept away at once and replaced by one simple thought.

 _Please, forgive me._

Right when he had hoped to be finally brought to care nothing about the world and the people who lived in it, Vincent found himself caring so much. He strongly and desperately wished for her to forgive him. He hardly had cared _more_ about anything in his life. Victoria's forgiveness was everything, the possibility to be looked upon with benevolent eyes by her felt essential to his life like the very air his lungs were breathing.

He felt almost dizzy from the intensity of that need. He instinctively put a hand on the wall to keep himself steady. Victoria hadn't even spoken yet, and Vincent was already absolutely aware that he was ready to beg her for forgiveness. He was ready to kneel on the floor, if that had the power to inspire her benevolence.

In the meantime, some part of Vincent's brain had not lost the ability to produce coherent thoughts and he noticed that Victoria looked more surprised to see him than unhappy. Her eyes rapidly studied him and then fixed on his face, forcing him to lower his gaze to the floor. The stool upon which she was sitting had swiveled following her body and she was now facing him completely. As he had previously noted, the dress she had borrowed was clearly too big for her and made her look like a child who is playing in her mother's clothes. But when he lifted back his gaze, that child's eyes looked very determined to look into his own. He was forced to reckon that was not a child after all.

-I… - he tried to say, but all those words he had rehearsed over and over in his mind were gone. Perhaps kneeling in front of her would really be the only possible thing he could do.

-Please, shut up.- she said, in a calm but very firm way. Vincent was very happy to obey.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and swallowed. Then she looked back at him, with a new determination in her eyes.

-When you told me about what you've done with my DNA I felt unspeakably hurt and betrayed. I wanted to go away and never see you again. I wanted to hurt you and make you pay for the trust I had put in you and that you have thrown away. I wanted to die, also. To be finally over with everything and everyone.-

Her words felt like ice daggers piercing into Vincent's body.

-Most of all, I just wanted to stop suffering so much. I don't know much about you, but I guess you know what I'm talking about when I say that I'm exhausted to feel all this pain. At this point I don't want to be happy, I just want to feel nothing. No more pain.-

That feeling was so painfully familiar to him that he instinctively nodded in agreement. He knew. He knew so well.

-What hurt me the most was that such a betrayal came from you, from someone who I entrusted with my life and my happiness blindly. You're a very strange man, and often I don't understand why you do what you do, but I never thought for a second that you'd do something like this to me. I always thought you'd protect me like you've done that night. Maybe I was naive to just assume that, but I did.-

She took another deep breath and Vincent watched her closely as she did that. He was deeply impressed by the ability she had to just pour all her feelings into words and explain in so many details how she felt. If only he could do the same…

-I felt all these things and I still feel some of those. And as I was in the middle of those feelings I even thought things that I'm now very ashamed of. I thought you were like _him_.-

Vincent swallowed a very bitter bite. She meant like Hojo.

-But… -

She paused again, maybe to collect her thoughts.

-But it didn't make sense. The more I thought about it, the more it looked absurd. As I said, I don't really know you, but I don't believe all that has happened between us was a fraud or a scheme to get me to trust you and then use me. First of all, it doesn't make any sense. If you just wanted my DNA from the beginning, you could have taken it anytime. Why wait so many days? And why confess it afterwards?-

Another deep breath. Vincent felt spellbound.

-Secondly, if I just need you for something why bother to care for me and my needs? Why indulge my requests and even sleep in the same bed with me just because I ask you to? If I'm just your prisoner, why don't you treat me like one?-

She paused again, tormenting her fingers with her nails. She was brave, but those words were as heavy as mountains.

-Unless you wanted to… _use me_ … I…-

Victoria's voice disappeared somewhere in her throat and Vincent tried to wait patiently for its return.

-I'm at your mercy since we first met.- she said, after a few moments -You keep a shotgun in our room and I couldn't possibly best you even in a melee combat. You could have… _taken me_ … whenever you wanted.-

Vincent hoped he was not understanding correctly what she was saying.

-You think I would…?- he tried to ask.

He could not say the word "rape". His mouth refused to pronounce it and his ears were not going to hear his own voice say that.

-No!- she replied hastily, looking confused for the first time since he had walked into the room -I don't think you'd do that, that's what I'm saying! If you were that kind of… man… you'd have already done it.-

Silence fell as the reality of her words sunk into him. He had always considered him and her to be equal in their relationship, the only disparity being that he had saved her from the Mansion, which was something he considered to be a mere coincidence, not a thing that put him in a position of advantage towards her. He had always thought he had done the only decent thing to do in that situation, and that he had also done it with a very shameful delay.

However, he was starting to realize what had meant for Victoria to trust an unknown man and to be left alone for all those time with him, hoping he was not such a monster to do something so horrible to her. Which, for a second, made Vincent wonder a very unpleasant question: what had _Hojo_ done to her exactly?

-So, I know you to be a kind person.- she said, forcing his attention away from that doubt -And it makes no sense that someone who has treated me with kindness, respect and… -

She hesitated.

-... With affection… -

She blushed.

-... Would then do something like that to me.-

Affection, Vincent thought. Had he treated her with affection?

-Moreover, we've spent enough time together for me to notice some things about you.- she continued, and he felt so eager to know more.

-I've seen how you shivered when we touched and how some of the things I've asked you to do were very challenging for you. I guess you did those as acts of kindness towards me, and I must confess that made me cry a few times. I'd never thought someone could be so kind to me even against his own will.-

Her eyes became teary even as she spoke about it and Vincent had to resist the instinct to go forward and hug her.

-To be honest, I want to apologize for making you do things you felt uncomfortable doing- she continued, and her gaze finally dropped to the floor while she looked a bit overwhelmed by emotions.

Vincent felt his heart tighten. _She_ was apologizing to _him_!

-You see?- she said, almost sobbing -How can I believe that you wished to hurt me or use me when you have been so kind to me all this time? It doesn't make any sense! So I'm left to believe that you're just a fool, that you did a very stupid thing because you don't know what to do!-

She wiped her tears away with the cloth of the dress and sniffed. When her eyes looked back at him, their surface looked like a pond in which someone has thrown a rock.

-I'm still angry at you and I'm still offended by what you did, but I can't bring myself to believe that you are like _him_ or that you wanted to hurt me.- she exhaled.

She looked exhausted but there was still a determination in her that Vincent found impossible not to admire. In her eyes there was a silent request for peace between them that he hoped was not only a product of his imagination. He noticed he had a lump in his throat. Seeing her so shaken by emotions had shook him too.

It didn't look like Victoria was going to say anything else, therefore Vincent thought it was his turn to talk. He took a deep breath and finally left his position near the stairs to walk in her direction. He still didn't know exactly what to do or say, but he had the new and surprising feeling he could somehow manage the situation.

He stopped just a couple of steps away from her, so close that he could easily touch her with a gesture as simple as lifting a hand. Victoria looked him in the eyes with what he hoped was a vision of trust. She was finally ready to hear him speak.


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

-I have so many questions- Vincent said while a distant thunder roared outside -But I think I owe you a lot of answers first.-

He took a deep breath with his eyes closed, then he looked at Victoria's face trying to maintain her gaze, which was now very focused on him. She finally seemed to be quite calm. Of course, it was his turn to be anxious now. But first, an apology was due.

-I have hurt you deeply and for this I won't easily forgive myself. I don't expect you to forgive me either, but I beg for your forgiveness nonetheless.- he said, meaning every word.

He bowed his head for a few moments, hoping she would understand it as the sign of deference and repentance he meant it to be. When he looked back at her, her eyes seemed benevolent, and this gave him a little courage.

-I have many flaws, but I never considered myself to be stupid or insensitive. Now, what I've done is incredibly stupid and deeply insensitive and, as you said, it looks like it doesn't make any sense. That's because you don't know what's behind my actions, so I guess I'll try to explain their context and offer you some of the reasons which made me act like I did.-

Another deep breath. Explaining the context of his actions meant doing something he had never done before: talk about his love for Lucrecia. In fact, in all those hours spent on the bed wanting to die he had come to at least one firm conclusion: if Lucrecia wasn't in the equation, he would have never behaved like he had done. Of course knowing everything about Victoria's DNA and which experiment Hojo had been performing on her was imperative, but going behind her back instead of talking to her was the result of his inability to speak about Lucrecia and how the mere hypothesis that she could be her biological daughter made him feel.

It had been quite convenient to think that acting behind her back was necessary because Victoria couldn't handle any more trauma instead of facing the fact that it was him who was not brave enough to explain why he was so afraid that she could be Lucrecia's daughter. He had happily hidden his own weakness under Victoria's supposed one.

-Please, know that I don't mean this reasons to serve as excuses. I wronged you deeply and I won't hide behind anything to look less faulty. I just think you deserve to know why I did what I did.- he added. It was very important that she understood that.

Victoria nodded in approval. She smiled a little, even. She was clearly trying to be encouraging, and Vincent appreciated that attitude. He surely needed to be encouraged a lot.

-The first day we were here, we talked briefly about my past. You asked me a few questions, but I guess my answers didn't satisfy your curiosity. Am I right?-

Victoria nodded again.

-You're a very mysterious man.- she said, in a tone that Vincent couldn't quite understand.

-I guess I am.-

He paused for a few moments before going forward.

-If I recall correctly, that day you said that Professor Hojo has talked to you about me.-

Vincent noticed how she shivered hearing the name of the scientist, and he couldn't blame her for that, but if they kept on referring to Hojo as "him" they would end up fearing even his name. Dreading the man himself was enough, he could not stand to be afraid to pronounce a word, and Victoria shouldn't be either. That was an effort they should do together.

-Can I please ask you to repeat what he has said about me?-

Victoria swallowed. She was clearly not happy to recall any conversation with Hojo.

-He said you loved a woman, many years ago, and that you made a mistake that ruined your life.- she said obediently despite her fingers were trembling a little. Vincent couldn't avoid noticing that and feeling a deep wave of affection for her. She was hurt in so many ways that he could understand so perfectly well.

Actually, he still remembered very well those words from the first time she had used them, but he wanted to hear it all again to be sure there was nothing more. Apparently, Hojo had spared her the details, which also meant that it was Vincent's burden to fully explain the situation.

-What does this have to do with what happened between us?- asked Victoria while he hesitated.

-Everything.- Vincent replied, wondering where should he start. From the beginning, perhaps.

-A little more than thirty years ago I was twenty-seven years old and I worked for Shinra Company, in a division that is now known informally as "Turks", but was actually called Department of Administrative Research. It was a fancy name for a group of people who were basically trained to execute orders without asking questions. This meant doing all sorts of things, including spying, kidnapping and killing for Shinra.-

He paused, waiting for Victoria to process all those informations.

-You were twenty-seven… _thirty years ago_?- she asked, looking understandably confused.

-It sounds like I'm mad, I know, but Chaos somehow keeps my body a lot younger than my anagraphical age would require.- he replied. It sounded so ridiculous said out loud, but it was the truth nonetheless.

-How… does he do that? And why?-

Victoria looked so surprised by that information that she even leaned a little towards him, as if she wanted to touch him and find proof of his actual age. Luckily, she didn't do that.

-I don't know, really. My guess is that a young body works better than an older one.- Vincent said, feeling quite uncomfortable for being the center of attention and also not being capable of explaining how his own body worked.

Victoria gazed at his face with a new curiosity. She really looked like she was searching for clues of his age.

-What about the other things I said? Me being part of a group of spies and killers and working for Shinra?- he asked. Was her perception of him as a kind man still intact?

Victoria's eyes tighten as she looked at him with a completely different focus.

-I find it hard to believe, but it was a long time ago. I guess people can change a lot in thirty years. And you actually don't look like someone who would fit quite well in a office.- she said.

Vincent felt unusually tempted to smile. He had always thought the same about himself.

-I didn't fit quite well with the Turks either, to be honest.-

For a moment, all the scattered memories form that particular period of his life hit him at once, and Vincent felt surprised that he still remembered so much about it. His colleagues, which he never got to consider as friends, his missions, his everyday life as a Turk were all there, somewhere in a corner of his mind, where time had left them mostly untainted.

-For me it was a job like any other. I found it agreeable because it didn't involve a lot of public relations, in which I've never been good, and because they trained me to shoot, which, on the contrary, is something I'm quite skilled at.

It was during my job as a Turk that, as I said, when I was was twenty-seven years old I met Professor Hojo. I was assigned to supervise the so called "Jenova Project", a secret scientific research financed and promoted by Shinra and held by Professor Hojo himself and other scientist. My duty was to serve as bodyguard for them and to spy on them. I guess Shinra knew better than to completely trust Hojo and wanted to know if he was wasting their money or using it for something different from what they had paid for.

The goal of the Jenova Project was to create a human hybrid with the extraterrestrial creature Jenova, whom Shinra mistakenly believed to be an Ancient. I don't know how much have you heard about it, but after a few failed experiments they eventually made it and Sephiroth was the only successful result of the whole project.-

Pronouncing Sephiroth's name always left a certain electricity in the air, and Vincent paused his story to take a few breaths. He could not beat around the bush any longer, the time had come to talk about Lucrecia.

-I think you already know that Sephiroth is Professor Hojo's biological son, but maybe you know nothing about Hojo's wife, Professor Crescent, who was also a scientist involved in the Jenova Project. And Sephiroth's mother. -

He exhaled, not completely disappointed by how he was handling the situation. "Professor Crescent" was such a formal way of referring to Lucrecia that it almost felt like talking about someone else, which made it more bearable to Vincent. If he kept doing it like that, perhaps he could explain the situation quickly.

In the meantime, Victoria appeared to be quite puzzled. It seemed she had never heard about Lucrecia, and Vincent couldn't say he was surprised. How typical of Hojo to conveniently forget to mention his coworkers and take all the credit for his works.

He took another deep breath. He had reached the most difficult part of the whole thing.

-I fell…-

Halfway through the most important sentence of the speech, Vincent's voice failed to show up. It appeared that using "Professor Crescent" instead of her first name was not a solution, after all. Saying that he loved her out loud was still impossible, still too much. He lacked the courage to give voice to his feelings, as he had always had, especially when saying something could have made a real difference.

He had never even tried to confess his feelings to Lucrecia herself because he had always been awfully sure that she would have said something like "I'm sorry, believe me, I love you but not in that way". Lucrecia was a caring person, so she probably cared about him in some way. But not remotely in the same way that he cared for her.

To his immense surprise, Victoria leaned towards him and took his hand into hers. It was his left hand, and she held it with both hers, surrounding it with the warmth of her palms. Her fingers gently bent onto his skin in a delicate caress. Thankfully or regrettably, he had forgotten to put on his gloves while getting dressed, and there were no obstacles at all to shield him from her touch.

-I… I fell in l…- he tried again.

-In love with Sephiroth's mother?- Victoria guessed, looking into his eyes with a gaze so caring that he couldn't almost bear it.

Vincent closed his eyelids and nodded slowly.

-Lucrecia- he whispered, because he could not bring himself to pronounce it out loud.

-Lucrecia- repeated Victoria, as if she was trying to get acquainted with Professor Crescent herself by owning her name.

Vincent thought that it sounded so strange spoken by her, especially while Victoria's warm hands surrounded his own. The natural way in which she had touched him while seeing him in distress reminded him even more how things had never worked in that way with Lucrecia herself. She had been such a gentle and sweet woman, but her kindness had never reached a level of warmth compared to Victoria's.

He felt his legs weaken and quickly sat on the nearest stool to avoid falling to the ground. This brought him even closer to Victoria, which felt at the same time quite reassuring and very confusing. Talking about Lucrecia had always been strange and difficult for him, but doing it with such intimacy between his body and Victoria's felt like spitting on the woman's crystal grave. And letting Victoria hold his hand while he was thinking about Lucrecia felt like another betrayal. Vincent thought he was trying to right a wrong by making several bigger ones.

-Lucrecia- repeated Victoria in a low voice, making him feel even worse. Why was she doing that?

-Yes, that is her name- he said, trying to win back some dignity. He could not actually faint just by saying her name, for god's sake!

-Is?- Victoria asked immediately -We're talking about things that happened thirty years ago! Is she still alive after all these time?-

Vincent felt like he had taken a misstep. Talking about the details of Lucrecia's "living" state was not what he had hoped to do. He surely could do without reminding himself that she was in that pitiful state because of his inability to help her. However, it was very understandable that Victoria wanted to know more. After all, he had said that Lucrecia had everything to do with the way he had treated her.

So, he took a very deep breath. And then he took another. Just in case.

-It's a very complicated story but she… I mean, Hojo and her decided to inject Jenova's cells directly into her womb while she was pregnant with Sephiroth, therefore…-

-They did _what_?!- Victoria almost screamed, interrupting and quite scaring him. He surely hadn't foreseen that reaction.

-I tried to stop them but…-

-This is insane!- she cried out.

She was still holding Vincent's hands in her own, but her grip rapidly became so tight that both their skins started to whiten.

Victoria looked nothing less than infuriated and outraged. Vincent was puzzled by that reaction: he couldn't quite understand why she was getting so angry for something that had happened before she was born to people she had never even met, but that change in her attitude somehow brought him fully back to reality. His friends were nowhere to be seen, but he doubted that they had left the house, and they would surely run there as fast as they could if they heard her screaming. He could not deal with them right then, therefore she needed to calm down.

-Please, don't shout.- he asked, putting his free hand on her shoulder.

His gesture had been involuntary, but it proved to be surprisingly effective. Victoria's left shoulder was the one that was left uncovered by the dress, which meant that Vincent's hand touched her skin directly. This surprised him, because he had not thought for an instant about what he was actually doing, but his startle was nothing compared to Victoria's, who looked at his hand over her body as if it was the strangest thing on the whole planet. That seemed to be a sufficient distraction to make her partially abandon her rage. She took a deep breath and leaned a bit into his touch, turning her head into the opposite direction and closing her eyes. Her grip on his hand loosened a bit, but she didn't let him go.

Vincent got distracted too. He immediately noticed how Victoria's skin felt a little cold under his palm. There was nothing actually surprising about it, since that portion of her body had been uncovered by Tifa's dress for quite some time and the storm that was still raging outside had brought a certain chill in the autumn air, but his attention was captured by the difference between that and how warm she usually felt. A part of Vincent's mind wondered if it was the case to interrupt their conversation and make her wear something warmer and less revealing.

-Please, tell me that they didn't do it. Tell me they didn't experiment on their baby.- Victoria said, almost whispering and forcing him to focus back on their conversation. Suddenly she looked and sounded really exhausted.

-I wish I could.- Vincent replied, feeling a very familiar wave of guilt and shame swallow his heart. If only he had done something more to stop Lucrecia…

Victoria looked back at him with eyes made shiny by a new wave of tears. She had been crying so often in front of him since they had met that Vincent had started to be amazed by the quantity of water she could hold inside her body and pour out when the occasion rose. She was like a bottomless chalice of sadness.

-How many of _us_ have to exist before people stop torturing their own children?- she asked.

It was clearly a rhetorical question, and Vincent's hand left he shoulder to mirror her grip onto his hand. She seemed deprived of all her previous strength and courage. She was just a very scared child, which he was scaring even more with his painful memories. That was one of the reasons why Vincent usually avoided talking about his past: who would want to bear the weight of that knowledge?

He remembered the notebook Reeve had found inside the Mansion, and the S. that stood for Sephiroth's name. He imagined once again the Silver General as a weird child, a young boy that must have looked like some kind of alien with those long white hair. What a childhood had he had? Had he ever experienced some form of love or the blissful feeling of being at home, protected and cared for? And had Victoria?

The tears that were generously pouring onto her checks spoke clearly about her experience, and probability about Sephiroth's childhood too. Vincent had been tortured and traumatized, but at least he was already a grown man when it all happened. What kind of adult can a child who is treated like that become? Had Sephiroth ever had any chance of becoming something different than a mad man?

-And you loved her?- Victoria suddenly asked, looking quite offended by that possibility -A woman who... tortured her own son.-

That was another of the many reasons why Vincent systematically avoided talking about Lucrecia and his love for her. People just couldn't understand how Hojo treated her, and how desperate about being approved and loved she had been. The Lucrecia he had known, a brilliant scientist but also a very fragile person, could not be justly represented by the words Victoria had spoken. He couldn't portray a more fitting picture of her, not because she was not a better person, but because he was not good with words.

-I did.- said Vincent, and then he felt guilty for using the past tense.

-I do.- he corrected himself.

Victoria looked away from him into the emptiness of the room. He felt her hands pull back from his and he watched as she tried to finally cover her shoulder by pulling up the dress. The cloth redistributed on her body, inevitably showing some more skin on the opposite side. It was just too big.

-And what has this to do with me?- Victoria asked with a voice made shaky by crying.

-You've told me you know what Hojo's experiments on you aimed to.- he replied, trying to focus back on the main topic of their conversation -That he wanted to use you to create a new generation of Sephiroth-like babies-

-I…-

-But why you?- asked Vincent, feeling his heart beat faster as they finally approached the core of the problem -When and how have you become a part of the equation?-

-He…-

Victoria seemed incapable of answering his question, and he really couldn't blame her for that. If his suspects were correct, she was just another child unwillingly dragged into that man's mad schemes, and it just made sense that she wasn't fully aware of her own situation. Hojo's delirious soliloquies where not made to be a satisfying explanation of his doing.

-What I fear is that you were made for this, like Sephiroth was.- Vincent finally said, once again lacking better words to put his thoughts into. It was a very blunt way to break the news to her, but he also felt that there was no way of sugar coating a thing like that one.

Victoria's reaction was one of the most surprising thing that had ever happened to Vincent in his long and unconventional life. She took the shot with dignity and a calm attitude. Right when he had expected to see her tears stream like a river, she actually stopped crying. She also finally looked back at him. Her eyes were full of resignation.

-You're saying that you suspect Hojo to be my father.- she said, as if that was the biggest banality she had ever heard -You should've simply asked me, I could've saved you the trouble of going behind my back.-

For the second time that afternoon, Vincent felt the need to hold onto something (in this case, the bar counter). Was she saying what he thought she was?

-I've always known I am his biological daughter, he has never been mysterious about that.- she added. Her eyes looked now empty. There were no tears or emotions left for her to pour.

Vincent felt so stupid that he was tempted to go upstairs and just shoot himself in the head. Of course she knew! Just like Sephiroth, who had always known who is "father" was. Hojo would never hide something like that to her, because probably he saw that biological link as a reason to be even more proud of himself. What a perfect scientist: he could even produce his own testing subjects at will!

Victoria's face proved once again capable of changing her landscape with an impressive speed. Vincent was still thinking about his own foolishness when she turned from calm to offended and he tried to quickly adjust to that new situation.

-But what you're actually saying is that you're afraid that I'm _her_ daughter too. The daughter of the woman you love.-

She pronounced those words with an echo of growing anger.

He was not afraid for her. He feared for Lucrecia and himself. Victoria's life was a nightmare whether she was Lucrecia's daughter or not, but to Vincent that could make a lot of difference. The difference between a kindred spirit with whom he could share his burden with and the untouchable daughter of Lucrecia, whom he was bound to take care of and never dare touch again.

Maybe it's already too late for that, Vincent thought. He had wanted to touch her since the moment her hands had left his grip. He wanted to touch her again right there and than. To comfort her, to hold onto her, to plead guilty and ask for forgiveness once again, and maybe to share whatever remains of strength they both had.

But he didn't, of course, out of respect for her and because Victoria looked like she could kill him with just a gaze.

-You got me.- he said instead. There was no point in denying it. -I told myself that I was doing all of this to avoid you further trauma, but it was actually because I couldn't find the strength to have the conversation we're having right now. I couldn't talk about her.-

Victoria seemed to be understandably disappointed, but the rage in her eyes calmed down quite rapidly and, if Vincent understood correctly, left its place to sadness. She looked away again, lowering her thick lashes onto her eyes.

-So, all that you've done for me, all the care you took of me… it was never about me, am I right? It was all for Lucrecia, all because I could be her daughter…- she murmured.

It was now Vincent's turn to close his eyes. He remembered what he had felt while touching her. At first, the shivers, the dizziness and the electricity. Then, the sensation of peace and tranquillity. And how good it felt to be touched by her and to hold her. He remember how easily he had fallen asleep with her in his bed and the absence of nightmares in his sleep.

Some of it had happened before suspecting that Lucrecia could be her mother. But lots of it had occurred after Reeve's visit, when he already feared that relationship. However, Vincent had kept on feeling attracted to her and to her body in a way that was not only uncaring of her possible link to Lucrecia, but also very different from what he had ever felt towards the scientist herself.

Somehow, despite what his mind knew or suspected, the rest of him had decided to ignore Lucrecia and proceed with that path of discovery. Which was absolutely unbelievable.

-No- he said, feeling very surprised by himself -What's happened between us has nothing to do with that.-

He had never thought about this before, but the more he considered his actions the more he realized he had been acting in a way that felt absurd and at the same time completely natural. His own instinct had brought him to do things that his mind would consider to be a sign of madness.

For the first time since they had met more than thirty years before, Vincent had acted ignoring Lucrecia completely. A part from the whole DNA thing, nothing he had done or said to Victoria was the result of taking Lucrecia into consideration. He had simply done what he wanted or what he had thought that Victoria wished him to do.

-Everything I have done… I've done it for you or for me.- he said, feeling again very surprised by his own words.

Victoria looked back at him with an indecipherable gaze.

-Please, don't lie to me. Are you saying that when you hugged me last night it was not because you suspected me to be her daughter? And later, when you let me sleep with you… It was not because of her?- she asked. She sounded dead sirius.

-No, I… - Vincent lacked words to explain himself -I did it because I wanted to and I thought it was what you wanted too.-

So simple. So incredible. He had acted on his own, without even thinking for a moment how Lucrecia would feel knowing he was sleeping in the same bed with her daughter. All he had wondered was what Victoria felt like, what she wanted or needed to feel better, and what he needed or wanted too.

-You look surprised- she pointed out, and Vincent had no doubt he did.

-I am- he replied without even paying attention to his own words -I've been… -

He'd been thinking only about Lucrecia for thirty long years and in less then ten days he had done so many things without even considering her. What the hell was going on with him?!

Before surprise could leave its place to panic, Victoria's hands on his cheeks shook him away from those thoughts. She had left her stool and was now standing on her feet right in front of him, with her hands firmly placed onto his face, as if she wanted to keep him looking directly at her. Her eyes were fixed into his own.

-Look me in the eye and swear it. Swear I'm not just a substitute.- she ordered. She radiated such power and authority that Vincent felt a long shiver run through his back and the skin on his arms had goosebumps. How could she express immense fragility and absolute strength just a few moments away?

-I swear it.- he obeyed, without even questioning himself. He had no idea who she was and what she was doing to him, but she was most definitely not just Lucrecia's substitute.

-Now swear I'm not just her daughter to you.- she ordered next. He obeyed again instantly, looking her straight into those chocolate brown eyes made swollen and reddish by the repeated crying. The DNA test could confirm his fears or not, but she was absolutely not just Lucrecia's daughter.

She was Victoria, even if it was just a name he had dreamt about and which he had never even pronounced out loud. And Victoria was her own person, not just the surrogate or the replacement of someone else.

She took a step towards him and Vincent tightened the grip he had forgotten he still had onto the bar counter. There was a palpable electricity in the air, and this time no one had pronounced Sephiroth's name. It was because of her and the way she was touching him. Once again, nothing that had anything to do with Lucrecia.

Victoria's gaze into his eyes felt bounding like a spell: he simply could not look away.

She was now just a step away from him, so close that he could feel her breath blowing onto his skin. It was both a very scaring and intoxicating sensation. He suddenly felt hot and breathless behind the multiple buckles of his clothes.

Victoria's eyes seemed to look into his own with a silent question. It could be "Can I?" or "Will you?" but her mouth didn't put whatever it was into words.

Could she? And would he?

Vincent thought about his life. About the missed opportunities, everything he had wanted and that he had never had. He considered the absurdity of this situation and the infinite list of things that could go terribly wrong. What if she really was Lucrecia's daughter? What could this little, fragile and invincible warrior do to him?

He thought about the night they had met and the strength with which she had held onto him. A terrified naked girl running away from a monster. Ironically, she had met Vincent, which was under many aspects another kind of monster himself. Considering their situation, it surely was very easy to think that he had rose from his own ashes to save her from her agony. But she had been there for years, trapped and alone, and she had escaped as soon as she could. While he had been armed all along and had just been there brooding about his sins for ages.

Who had actually rescued whom? Who couldn't have been freed without the other?

Now that she was there, so close to him and making once again physical contact with his body, Vincent felt there was something like a material and metaphysical truth in her presence. Her hands on his face felt more significant than any pair of hands on any possible face. They felt like a promise and a scream.

 _I'm here, see me. See who I am_.

Vincent unconsciously leaned forward a few inches. There was an irresistible magnetic power in her. Victoria had such a stability and strength that it almost created a gravity of her own, which he couldn't and wouldn't escape.

Somehow she managed to be everything he was and didn't wanted to be and, at the same time, everything he had always wanted to be and never got to. With all the fragility and wounds that he had witnessed multiple times with his own eyes, she still looked whole and complete, something that he had never achieved.

Victoria was fascinating to him. He had known her for just a few days but she had clearly shown to be unpredictable and ever changing. Like the ocean, she could be stormy and peaceful at the same time or she could quickly shift from one to the other and then back again. Vincent felt attracted to her in the same way that someone standing on the edge of a cliff is tempted to jump. He dreaded and desired to discover which infinite possibilities seemed to wait for him between her arms. To be accepted and embraced, to sink into the water and disappear, to lose one's self and maybe find someone new.

-Victoria, I… - he whispered, not really paying attention to what he was saying. His mind was elsewhere engaged.

The spell casted by her eyes changed but stood strong. She blinked a few times and made a surprised expression, but he still couldn't look away.

-Victoria?- she asked. Her voice resonated so perfectly in pronouncing her own name that Vincent thought that to be the final proof that somehow it was actually hers. Probably not the one she had received being born, but a name much deeply connected to her soul.

He remembered the Victoria he had dreamt about, with that unforgettable red dress. Maybe it had all been just a dream, or perhaps there was something deeper about it, something he couldn't quite understand but that had led him into the right direction.

 _Victoria_.

-Victoria… - he repeated, finding himself too lost to produce any form of coherent explanation. His free hand instinctively reached the curve of her waist, and he dragged her even closer to him. The cloth of the dress felt very warm under his fingers, and he recognized that warmth to be very familiar. It was the heat produced by Victoria's body, who was now so known to him that he could instantly recognize it. A sensation that gave him chills of pleasure.

Victoria let him pull her closer without any opposition. She also slipped her right hand over his ear and into his hair, tracing her road onto the surface of his head with her nails.

Vincent shivered massively.

Her left hand remained still onto his cheek, with her thumb so close to his mouth that he felt goosebumps in the corner of his lips.

The music produced by the rain dripping onto the windows created a surreal atmosphere of suspension, as if they were nowhere and in no specific time. The house, the Avalanche, the whole city and the world had somehow been left outside that dimension where only him and Victoria existed. A reality without pain or sorrow, without anger and regret. A world where only the simple reality of their bodies mattered and how closer they could get without colliding into one being.

It lasted for moments that could have been hours. Then a deafening thunder roared onto their very heads and Vincent felt Victoria shiver with scare or surprise. She smiled in embarrassment and her cheeks got deliciously reddish.

Finally, she lowered her gaze and the spell she had casted onto him definitely broke. Vincent felt suddenly very conscious of how compromising that situation was and that the world did actually still exist around them. A world in which one of his friends could easily walk into the room anytime and found him almost kissing Victoria, whom he had actually dared to call by that name, and who was now standing so close to him that he could easily count her freckles, even the ones that were almost indistinguishable from her skin tone.

-What are we doing?- she whispered, lifting her gaze back into his eyes and slowly caressing his cheek with her fingers -You've just said to me that you're in love with Lucrecia-.

Hearing the scientist's name made Vincent feel shattered like a glass thrown onto the floor. He choked on his own saliva and removed his hand from Victoria's waist instantly. What the hell was he doing?!

Victoria looked painfully aware that something had broke between them and slowly removed her hands from him, gently pulling his hair as her fingers untangled from the confused mass of his unruly locks. She also took a few steps back, stopping only when the distance between them was enough to not raise suspicion to any possible spectator that could enter the room. A flashing in the light announced the imminent arrival of another thunder, and this time Victoria didn't startle at the noise.

Vincent coughed a couple of times to free his throat from the choking sensation and stood up from the stool trying to assume a composed and normal position. He still felt quite breathless behind his clothes, and the aftermath of all those complicated feelings still lingered into him. He thought that some of it oddly resembled the feeling of falling asleep, or rather the sensation of complete surrender one feels in that occasion. He had almost given up his body to her, and it had felt dangerously tempting. Moreover…

-Victoria?- he called, and she raised her eyes onto him. Vincent couldn't tell if she had actually understood that word to be her name. But explaining why he had pronounced it suddenly felt so ridiculous that he couldn't even attempt it.

-Victoria.- she repeated once again, as the noise produced by the rain suddenly got stronger. She smiled wholeheartedly.

-I adore it- she confessed.


End file.
